After Black Butte Heffernan Reunion we have in the past few years gone straight to Aptos (or Tahoe before that) for a Simonson family vacation/reunion with my family and my Dad's brother Bill and his family. My mom found a great house to rent that has tons of rooms and beds (bunk beds built into every room with a queen too!) and we had it reserved again this year. Everyone was packed up and heading for the beach the first Friday in August until... my Uncle Bill got there first and called my mom to tell her there were people in our house. It turns out the house had been double booked!! They scrambled to find us a "replacement" house but it wasn't as big for our crowd. We tried to make it work (my cousin Jim, his wife Erin and baby Mick slept in a "closet" off the room we slept in!) We still had fun but it was a big mess and kind of ruined everyone's relaxing week at the beach. Next year- back to Tahoe!

The first night we were supposed to celebrate my cousin Joey's 30th but had to move it to Saturday night- yummy cookie cake from Aunt Tere!

Big helpers (and yes that's Maddie, our babysitter and Emmy's new roommate- by default that means you join in on the family fun!)

Uncle James taught Maisie the finer points on cigars

Uncle Bill - still smilin!

All of our Aptos relatives came over to BBQ- Francie lead everyone in a show of course. What nice 11-14 year old boys to oblige

James and Jimmy (both James Simonson's born 9 days apart!) went to the hobby shop. Jimmy's wife Erin said to bring her back a treat and this is what he came up with. A box of fake mustaches.