Sunday July 8 is SashBash week!!!

July 7–all 24 of us are in route to Breckenridge, Colorado. Sunday, we have an 8-bedroom house waiting for the Shasserre family onslaught. Craig, Nicole, Olivia, Evan, Ella have flown into Denver Saturday night and they are spending the night with Johnny O. an old soccer buddy of Craig’s. Brian, Emily, Fisher and Amaya have flown in from Seattle. They are spending the night in Denver with friends. Mark, Kelly, Rumi and Teo flew in Thursday and they have been with friends everyday since. Todd, Jessica, and Scarlett arrive in Denver late Saturday night. Kris, Kerry, Sienna and Sebastian are traveling from Mount Vernon, Washington by vintage VW van. They blew a tire on the way. So, they are camping near Salt Lake City Saturday night. They will have a long drive on Sunday. Brent and Dani left from Saint Louis today and they are driving a Subaru all the way without an overnight stop. We drove from Salt Lake City to Grand Junction, Colorado today. It’s been a wonderful day of R&R. We are happy to be spending the night in a nice Clarion. We had a brief swim and a pizza dinner.

Olivia turned age 20 the day we all arrived at Breckenridge. Craig, Kris and Sienna  have birthdays in July. So, we had continuous days to celebrate. The home cooked dinners for 24 went along flawlessly thanks to great cooks and great planning by all.

The house was magnificent….8 bedrooms, 11 bathrooms, huge 12 person hot tub, downstairs rec room included pool table, video games, shuffle board, foos-ball, and a theater room (great for watching the World Cup games).

Each morning certain people left the house for hiking destinations, shopping, or whatever. Some groups went to Vail, Colorado and some did not. Some did the eight mile hikes and some (like me) did the three miles hike. We all stayed active in family groups but still had space for ourselves.

This was such a special SashBash. Special because this week in Colorado was the last week of our 22 week journey. Special because our time with family was the first time everyone could be together in one place in the past 10 years. It was special, of course, because Sandy and I were celebrating 50 years of marriage and all of the kids made a commitment to be together.

Remember the game called Roses and Thorns? One night as I was quietly observing all of the wonderful personalities that make up this large family of twenty-four I thought to myself, our “Roses” are those who have come into the family one by one, i.e., Nicole, Emily, Jessica, Mark, Kris, and Dani. They have joined our children and created grandchildren that make this very large family such a blessing.

Sandy and I are so grateful. To our children and their spouses and significant others. And to our grandchildren. Thanks for being special people. Thanks for loving each other. Thanks for making Sashbash 2018 the best one ever!