Thursday, February 24, 2011

Brian Head Family Reunion

Last weekend my mom hosted all of us Sedgwick's for a family reunion at Brian Head, UT. Talk about a wonderful time! We all trickled into Brian Head on Thursday night to a cabin that was large enough to hold all 40 of us. Friday and Saturday mornings, after a great patriotic devotional (it was President's Weekend after all) we all headed up to the slopes to spend the day skiing or snow boarding. The funnest (not really a word, right?) part of the day was all being together. The perfect snow wasn't too bad either. I won't mention the near blizzard-like conditions.
In the evenings we ate dinner together, sat in the hot tub, watched movies, played games and chatted until we finally forced ourselves (or should I say, until we forced the 11yr olds) to go to bed.
Thanks for such a great time, mom. It's something we will all remember!

A crazy bunch of cousins trying to make the biggest human pyramid in Brian Head history.
Four wheel drive came in hand on more than one occassion...
The basement of our reunion headquarters was a perfect place for hanging out.
Grandma with some of her loving admirers (aka grandkids).

My family climbed a 20 ft snow bank to pose for this picture. There was so much snow this weekend.
The cabin was in such a pretty setting. I loved the huge amount of snow, the tall trees and views of the ski slopes.

Valentine's Tradition

Everyone in the family looks forward to our Valentine's Day Fondue Fest. The kids especially love the fact that there are "no limits" on how much chocolate they eat. Traditionally I make a delicious milk chocolate ganache and have plates full of strawberries, bananas, cream puffs, donut holes, pretzels and marshmallows. This year we did things a little differently. Emma is on a Dairy Free diet right now as an experiment to see if her headaches improve without milk in her diet. So instead of milk chocolate ganache made with heavy cream, I used a darker chocolate (no milk) and cashew cream instead of dairy cream to make the ganache. The sauce was a success, though we all missed the sweetness of milk chocolate. On a side note, her headaches have gotten a lot better over the past several weeks without dairy in her diet.