Two years ago I invited Dallin to come to my Perazzo family reunion. We had discussed that it would be best to wait to get engaged until we were back together at BYU. So what did he do while we were at this reunion? He took me on a walk through a meadow into a grove of trees, said to me, "What the heck..." and plopped down on one knee. He had no ring nor permission from my father but there he was, looking up at me. "Alicia, will you marry me?" About a half hour later, he asked if he could get up off of his knee. But I wasn't done yet. He needed to hear all of my thoughts on the subject. When I finished, he looked back up at me. "Alicia, will you marry me?" I asked, "Where?" He said, "The temple." Then I said yes. That night he asked my parents if he could marry me. They weren't very inconspicuous about what conversation they were having. We were all just out in the middle of the campground, my parents and us having a "chat". And then we didn't tell anyone that we were already engaged for about a week. And a few months later I had a ring on my finger.
D: For the record, I wanted to make sure she was on board before talking to her parents. Also for the record, when I asked her parents if I could marry their daughter, they said, "Please."
A: Okay, I'm being too hard on Dallin. We had already discussed and prayed about marriage. He hadn't planned to propose when we headed out on the walk. It was just such a beautiful area and we were so happy and in love. I'm glad he did. It was just that there had been a few times prior that he had said things like, "Would you be willing to spend eternity with me?" and so I told him that when he eventually proposed for real that he needed to make it very clear that that is what was going on by having a ring. And so when he was asking me, I wasn't sure if it was for real. And later I wasn't sure if he would do it again with the ring. But I decided that that was legit enough and would count as an official proposal.
Anyway, this is the meadow, grove, and view from the grove. The grove had been burnt down to prevent the spread of a fire last year. This is us, two years later.
A: I seriously love going to our Perazzo family reunion. It has just the perfect amount of things going on at any given moment to where you can join a game or just rest to your hearts content. I hope it works out every year that I can go.
Here's Everett about to get in the water at Lake Almanor, the first time in a large body of water.
He loved the water, but not so much the hat.
Here's Dallin and I about to go tubing. See how flat my tube was. It was actually kind of fun to feel almost like I had no tube at all and was riding on the water.
But then when Dallin's tube flew on top of mine and my tube was so flat it sunk under the water, we decided to switch to one, air-filled, floating, happy tube. I had a blast. And the water was nice and warm so I didn't even mind falling in. Dallin said he even preferred being in the warm water to being on the tube. Silly kid.
Me knee-boarding:
Dallin "wake-boarding". I am proud of him for trying.
D: I had hurt my leg one of our first days there, so I only gave myself five tries. Oh well.
Meanwhile, Everett was being bounced and rocked to sleep by his first boat ride.
He fell asleep in other places too, like here on a walk with Grandpa.
But his grandpa is still the king of falling asleep in weird places. Like this quick nap.
And this one.
D: It's the facial expressions that make these. No idea where he learned them from.
D: Overall, we had a very fun time up at Lake Almanor. The sheer number of games, especially games of Pinochle, played is way too high to count. There were three separate Pinochle tournaments (Alicia and I made it to the semifinals twice, and Alicia and Joseph made it to the finals). 7 Wonders and Dominion were almost constantly in play, especially while Andrew and Heather were there. We introduced the youngins to Citadels, which they loved. I also learned how to play Hearts!
In non-game happenings, Heather had quite the insect collection going on, and got all of us involved. I still can't see a cool bug and not want to catch it. Volleyball was a nightly ritual, and often the married and non-married family members were pitted against each other.
My favorite parts were resting and playing board games. That darn knee kept me grounded for quite a bit of the week, but I mostly had too much fun to notice.
Everett had quite a bit of fun. He spent most of his time being cooed at by relatives (mostly Michael) and seemed to enjoy the attention. He is firmly in the attachment phase of life, so he was alright being with other people, unless he saw Alicia, me, or Michael. Still haven't figured out that last one. Kinda weirds me out.
A: I joined in on ultimate frisbee games. That is probably the most fun way to get a good workout. I liked learning more about my family members while playing games like Boxers or Briefs and Dixit Journey.
See also: My Aunt B
eth's post about the reunion. Thanks Aunt Beth!
