WARNING! THIS POST CONTAINS A LOT OF PICTURES! IF YOU ARE AFRAID OF PICTURES OR OTHERWISE TENTATIVE ABOUT THE DIETARY EFFECTS OF VIEWING TOO MANY PICTURES, DO NOT GO FURTHER!
Otherwise, continue below, and enjoy!
On April 12-13 we attended the Hector Bonfire, an annual event that takes place at, you guessed it, the Hector's house in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada in California. Included is a lot of time for fellowship, dinner, lunch, and breakfast, a bonfire (of course), Capture the Flag in the dark, hiking, 4-wheeling, dirt-bike riding, shooting, volleyball, kitchen work, games, and even swimming! It is a ton of fun, and we were better at taking pictures this time, so we have quite a few pictures taken from three different cameras.
This is a perfect picture for the Bonfire, and I purposely chose it to start of this post for that reason.
This is one of the 150-ish people that attended this year.
Volleyball!
A veritable deluge of cameras were produced for the Bonfire.
Lilyana is staying calm as she bikes around the eating area.
Lindsey and Isabella.
Poor Nic took a little tumble off the dirt bike, so he unfortunately had to miss out on many of the activities.
Roasting hot dogs for dinner.
Even more roasting hot dogs!
The little kiddos' table...
My wonderful mother, enjoying her meal.
Lots of people enjoying their meals.
A few of the girls enjoying their meals.
A few of the boys enjoying their meals...
Dad and Caleb enjoying their meals....
Kelsey and Levi/Sterling...enjoying their meals?
And now, the moment you've all been waiting for...
FIRE!!!!!
The bonfire consists of a whole year's worth of trimmings.
And it gets really big, and hot!
Enjoying the massive fire...from a distance of 50 feet. You can still feel it that far away, though!
The ones up "close"...that was about as far as one could stand to go.
Caleb needs to take some smiling lessons...
The Hartley family, visiting from Maryland.
Kevin and Amy (Kevamy/Amevin)...
Mom and Dad...
After the fire had gone for a little bit, we prepared for Capture the Flag...if you haven't played CTF in the dark, it's a must do! Just watch out for the barbed wire, and be careful where you run...
Unfortunately, everyone was too busy playing CTF that no pictures were taken of the event.
In the morning, one of the tasks one must do is load up one's car with the stuff one has brought. Mrs. Bolles and Gwyneth do just that.
One must also eat breakfast. It looks to me like Isabella is avoiding it, however...
Sarah and Lilyana hang out on the couch.
A morning meal...for the VanArtsdalens.
Corey working in the kitchen to prepare breakfast for 100+ people...
More kitchen crew...
Even more kitchen crew!
And some more kitchen crew...
One of the fruits of the kitchen crew's labor. There is another bowl of fruit just outside the picture as full as this one.
After breakfast, a group of people starting hiking to Indian Head. Those pictures will come in a second post.
Everyone who didn't hike stayed back and relaxed for a while, games were played, and flower pictures were taken by my Mom!
There is an aesthetic reason the poppy is our state flower...
Excitement ensues back at the Hector residence!
Bubbles were blown in abundance.
Trampolines were tramped upon.
"That's not flying! That's just falling with style!"
Bound, bound, bound and rebound...
"It's a bird, it's a plane, no, it's Justin and Gabby!"
The hikers at the top of Indian Head (which looks a lot like an Indian's head)...
Kevin returning from the hike to Indian Head.
And the main group of hikers return from Indian Head.
To be continued...the next post will have pictures mainly from the hike.
Casey
