Gresko Family Reunion

All my brothers and sister and their families were together in Arizona for a couple of days. We had this picture taken and were amazed at the size of our family. There's probably no more kids coming so our final number is 32 (20 grandkids, ten kids and spouses, my mom and dad).

Family Pictures

In spite of the fact that my husband is a professional photographer with two high-end cameras, we find it very difficult to take a family picture. Our dilemma: who is going to push the button? We just can't bring ourselves to pay someone else to take our picture, so we put it off.

This Christmas, though, I was determined to get a picture in our Christmas clothes, so I told everybody, "Don't change after church - we're taking a picture!" We got the camera and everyone all set up and took several shots using the timer. How this works: We all get in our spots and David focuses the camera, repeating over and over "Don't move! Don't move!" We emphasize the spot on the camera where we're all going to look (right below the "Nikon" lettering). Then he pushes the button and the light starts flashing and we are all counting down from 10 and he is running to his spot and I am saying, "Get ready! Look at the right spot. Hold still. Smile everyone!" David barely makes it in time, the camera flashes, and I walk over and check out the image to see how we did.

We had to take this shot 7 or 8 times and there's still a few things I'd fix, but it's pretty good for doing it on our own.

Love the Babies

I've been visiting all my family's blogs today and there are some beautiful babies there! My favorite is my little niece, Taryn, who shares my birthday and will turn one this coming Wednesday. My cousin, Tara just had a sweet little boy and my kids couldn't get over how cute my cousin Tiffany's little girl, Madison is. My brother Nathan had pictures taken of his four kids and I each child was darling and I love seeing my cousin Lori's kids, especially Luke who looks just like a Gresko!
My son Josh likes to give me a hard time that I don't love him anymore now that he's not cute and little. Not true, but it is hard to snuggle his 6'2" frame! And my "baby" Katie is seven now and quite the sophisticated little lady. Enjoy those little ones. It's hard work, but when it's over, you'll miss it!

Setting Goals

Last night on TV, I watched "The Last Lecture" and two episodes of "17 Kids & Counting" on TLC. I was inspired by two things. First, one of the pieces of advice from Randy was "Be good at something; it makes you valuable." Then, the cute mom of those 17 kids showed their daily schedule with everyone's goals for the day and she said, "Very rarely do we we accomplish everything on the chart, but we have goals. We have something that we're working for."

I decided that my family needed goals like that, too, so today we created our own individual schedule. After we filled in everything, all of my kids remarked how they had so much "free time." We even added piano lessons and practicing back into the day and they still have all this time to play with. It was a great activity and I'm hoping it will help us feel a little more in control of our days and the direction our lives are going in.

Hiking to Timpanogos Cave

I've lived in Utah County since I first came to BYU in 1988, but I had never hiked to Timpanogos Cave until today. I'm not sure where the inspiration came from. I was doing housework on Friday and realized "Hey - our family hasn't hiked to the cave" and suddenly, we were driving up American Fork Canyon on Saturday afternoon.

Unfortunately, you have to have a ticket to get in the cave and the lady standing right in front of me bought the last four tickets for the last tour of the day. We were all a little stunned. The kind ranger said, "Well, we're open tomorrow and it's the last day of the season." So....we decided Sunday afternoon was the day for us.

It was a tough hike - 1.5 miles of switchbacks up the side of the mountain. My mom came with us and felt every painful step, but she and all of us made it to the cave mouth just in time for the tour. This cave is incredible! We spent an hour walking underground through three caves that have thousands of stalagtites and stalagmites and "cave bacon" and "straws" and all sorts of weird stuff. We crawled through the narrowest crevices to get from one cave to the next, crouching low in some spots so we wouldn't hit our heads and hiking up long flights of stairs in other parts.

It was a pretty cool day and a neat experience! If you're ever in Utah County, I highly recommend it.

I've Become a Blogger

Sometimes my life seems so crazy and full that I've never considered adding my own blog to my long list of things to do. However, in recent weeks, I've enjoyed more and more visiting and reading my sister's and cousin's blogs. It's so fun to read and see what they've been up to, especially since we all live so far from each other. It also seems like a good place to vent at times and I do love to write, so...I've become a blogger!

This is a new world for me, so it'll take some time for me to get my blog looking as cute as all my families', but I'm glad to be a part of things.