Howard Family Reunion - Lake Tahoe

I meant to post this at the same time I posted China, but something interupted me and I'm finally getting back to it. The first week of August we held our first ever Clarence & Arlene Howard family reunion, and it was a blast! We rented a house up in South Lake Tahoe and for the most part never left it, we had so much fun within. The house was huge, sleeping all 19 adults and 2 children. We especially had fun with the ping pong, billiards and air hockey tables. Deven smartly organized a tournament for each game and we really did enjoy a game playing bonanza. The winners?

Billiards - Nathan

Air Hockey - Christopher

Ping Pong - Aaron

Of course, we also made sure to play our other favorites - Ticket to Ride, Acquire, Canasta, Settlers of Catan.....

Tuesday night we had a talent show where we displayed the amazing gifts our parents passed down to us.... or maybe we acquired them somewhere else along the way. Below we have the Kung Fu Howards. They really know how to exercise.

We were also very fortunate to be able to take a family picture with everyone being present (don't know when that will happen again for a long time). Despite the grumbling from those who don't like to spend time figuring out poses, we will have an amazing picture to remember it all with. The pictures below were taken at the same time, but you'll have to wait to see the family pic... our perfectionist brother has to put the finishing touches on it still.

Grandpa Eric enjoyed time with Conner.

And I can never get enough of this kiddo!

Happy 73rd Grandpa/Dad!

This was the one day we took a quick trip out to the lake. It was actually cold!

China - July 2009

Well, here you are. Pictures from my trip to China. It was a fantastic trip. The only downside was that the second day we were out exploring I slipped and sprained my ankle. It was raining and I was wearing plastic sandals so my tennis shoes didn't get soaking wet. I stepped over the threshold of the Summer Palace, on the nice stone/marble steps, and Whoosh! one foot went out in front of me and the other one got caught behind me. Typical Natasha. I took a moment to catch my breath, tried to stem the tears threatening, and managed to stand up and just keep on trucking. It slowed us down but not too badly I don't think. Oh well. That combined with high heat and humidity (no makeup or curled hair in these pictures!)

In case you're not familiar with everyone, I was traveling with my niece Shantel, her husband Aaron and their 5 month old Conner, Aaron's brother Jared, his wife Jennifer, and their 2yr old Jason. They were great traveling companions!

Everywhere we went Conner and Jason were seriously little rockstars. Two little blond, blue eyed boys were very rare. People everywhere stopped to look at them and often a brave one would come over and want to say hi and take a picture. Then the masses would decide it was ok to come take pictures. Eventually we got used to it.






Shantel was such a trooper. It was quite the challenge to make sure Conner got his naps and feedings in and they both learned to be as flexible with the schedule as possible. Shantel nursed in many strange places - standing in line to see Chairman Mao, on the Great Wall, in the buses, at the Temple of Heaven, etc. Despite some travel wearniness towards the end, overall I think Conner weathered the trip very well.

This is one of my favorite pictures I caught from the car window. There were tons of bikes and motorbikes all over every city and very often they consisted of a dad, mom and a small child (no helmets). This girl was transporting her PC.

The smog was incredible. It was so thick it seemed lick fog. In this city you could barely see the buildings that were just barely over the river.

There are so many pictures to show, they best way I could do it was to put them in a slide show. I don't have nearly all the pictures because they are divided among the 3 cameras we had and I haven't gotten copies of the others yet. Enjoy!