Live Laugh Love...with The Souza's: Family Laughlin Trips

Every year that Yosh’s sister and family come to visit Cali in the summer we ALWAYS make it a point to get to Laughlin. We are truly blessed…my father-in-law, Al, bought a pontoon house boat I think back in 2000. Yosh and his friends had the luxury of playing with it for those first 2 years…and then all that crazy the fun stopped when he met me. No more naked ladies on the boat! haha Just kidding. Its docked at Catherine’s Landing, and we love love love that boat, and so do my niece and nephew. Laughlin is the time when the Souza family gets to be together, relax on the water, eat dinners, have the grandparents watch the kids and get some “adult time” in the casino’s…its always so much fun!!

The first summer I met the VanSoest Family, back in 2003 it was so fun. Peyton LOVED me…and both Peyton and Bailey were soooo small! Yosh and I were only dating about 8 months at the time, so it was huge to go on a family mini-vacation. I remember all those awkward feelings…and makes me laugh out loud thinking about it!

I must have made a point to be the picture taker in this since I wasn’t technically a “member” of the family just yet…heck NOW I’m TOTALLY in the pics and using that timer feature! haha No pics w/o Erin…God Forbid! lol

ps. Look at my BUFF hubsband, back in 2003!!! woot woot

No clue where my 2004 River pictures went. Sad smile

Our 2005 Family trip…

No river trip in 2006 since they came out for our wedding year!! Whoohooo!!!

I think 2007 was the year that we didn’t go to the river since Missy and Chris were in China and the kids stayed here in Cali..?!? I’m losing track of time! ?? I have a group 4th of July pic from that year….and I’m so peeved…I KNOW I have a group picture at the docks but can not find it…so annoying!

That is all a lie…I found the pictures from 2007 on my myspace account (which I haven’t been on in years now)…BUT I knew we had pictures that I couldn’t find…THEN I remembered…we had some technology issues in 2007 and lost most of that years photos (due to a crappy external hard drive…I cried when we could recover the pics from it!)…BUT we had the ones I had posted on myspace back then!!
So here is the family pic from 2007…I LOVE it!! heehee

2009…our trip to Laughlin was a DISASTER because of this…

The weather was so so so so bad. And it came on suddenly. Turned our nice trip into a very scary first trip for our Owen. The boat actually got pushed onto shore…completely beached us and we had like 20 strangers help us get the boat off the sand. It was scary…and not a pleasant trip for my New-Mom anxiety!

I took this picture of that crappy weather as our boat was rocking, Owen (with his lifejacket securely fastened) in one hand, camera in the other. I was USELESS when Yosh needed boat help that day b/c I was terrified for Owen! Oh man…that was NOT fun!

But that was when we got the first picture of Papa and Mya with all three grandkids!

And this brings us to 2011.

This year was another awesome trip. The boat had just gotten its new “face-lift”…so we were excited to get on that puppy. We were blessed with great weather. Enjoyed ourselves. Once evening after putting Owen to bed, Mya was so nice to come over and sit in our room while Owen slept and Papa brought Peyton and Bailey back to is room to rent a movie. We got some “adult time” in the casino. Was a lot of fun!