Family Reunion 2012 - Thursday, July 19th

A perk to having the family reunion in Montana was having access to my parent's history.  Thursday morning, the 27 of us loaded into five vehicles and caravaned over to the small community where my parents met and grew up.  First, we stopped at their high school and my dad, who has been entertaining us kids for years with his dynamic dancing and cheering, showed off his cheerleading skills to his grandchldren in the very gymnasium in which he cheered.  He shared his choice to cheer at games instead of play in them as practically as he lives.  He loves sports but doesn't particularly enjoy participating in team sports and by cheering, he allowed his older brother, Jack, to attend all his practices and games while he went home to do the chores and farm work.  What a brother.



My dad explaining how things were.  Sam had a question.




Look at them all getting into the spirit of the cheer.



D-drum, drum, drum, Drummond...Drummond.



Go...Drummond!

From here...we went down the hallway of memories.  On the walls were the graduating classes of every class in its history.  All of my mother's siblings were on the wall.  All but one younger sister in my dad's family (his parents and sister moved away his senior year of high school and he lived with a friend that year).  Also, all ten of my cousins who grew up there.  It was incredible!




My mom pointing out her graduating class.



My dad below his class.



My mom in the bottom left corner.  My dad's sister is right above her. My mom was a senior when my dad was a freshman and his sister was my mom's best friend.  Sparks didn't fly until much later.




My dad, bottom and second from right, is sporting a very fetching suit jacket.  His friend who housed him his senior year is two pictures over to the left with a dapper plaid bow-tie.

Then Daniel had a major blow out and I didn't have a change of clothes.  Enter....naked baby!




As Jay had missed out on lots and lots of messy diapers with my many road trips, he happily changed Daniel.  O.K.  Maybe not happily.  It was pretty gross.



Sam is in this picture but you can't see him.  He is hiding behind Brendan, who is sitting on the handrail in the back.

With all 15 of their grandchildren.  Like the reunion shirts?  Each of our names is located within the outline of Montana.  All turned out well in the end but I the company was really bad at communication.    I cannot recommend t-shirtcafe.com even though it produced such a great shirt.  I had no idea where or when the shirts were coming!

From the high school, we made a quick stop in town.  Realize that town consists of a main street with one parallel street.  Still, they showed us where the movie theater was (no longer in operation) and the dance hall where there was a weekly Saturday night dance that went from 11 until 2.  Of course, nobody would show up before 11:30 pm.  And my parents went to these!

A few miles down the road, we stopped at both of their family ranches.  I am embarrassed to admit that I didn't know either of their histories very well.  We visited my uncle's family many times throughout my youth and teen years but it was always to their house for Sunday dinner and I guess I never bothered asking the right questions.  I always wondered why the church was as strong as it was in this rinky-dinky community in Montana but my parents explained that there was a group of members from Cache Valley, Utah who all emigrated in the early 1900s to homestead.  Most were younger siblings who didn't inherit family farms and ranches and, through word of mouth, close to a dozen LDS families established ranches in this beautiful spot of land.  My mother's father served as branch president for 25 years. My dad's father was bishop for 4 years and my uncle Fred was bishop for 11 years.  Although it is a branch once again, the community of LDS saints there still serve faithfully and my dad shared that in their entire stake, they have the highest percentage of sacrament meeting attendance and home and visiting - close to 100%.  Incredible.




The land that held the house (no longer standing) where my mother was born.

Our next stop was an even smaller town, Hall, just past their ranches where both attended K-8th grade.  There were two classrooms and a multi-purpose room with a stage.  It was a perfect image of a small school house and the kids loved the simple playground with its old-school equipment.









Teeter-totters!

I missed the picture of my dad swinging and then jumping off.  The memories of his former playground brought out his inner child.




Same with my mom.




Aunt Jen and Seth

We then took some back roads and ended up seeing a part of their history I didn't even know existed.  Their ranch was huge!  I honestly had no idea.  Thousands of acres beyond an irrigation canal that my mother has memories of spending on a tractor discing the dry land, feeling annoyed by how hot and dirty she was.  My brother spent summers over on my uncle's ranch changing pipes and I didn't know how vast it all was.  It probably wasn't the most exciting 2 hours for the grandchildren but I know all of us adults cherished the family history my parents shared with us.




The back land where the cows pastured and where the kids worked during the summer.  There were no houses in sight.  It was incredibly beautiful.



The creek where my mother was baptized.



The kids getting an education in how different life was back then.


Hello, perfectly idyllic creek which could be the poster of old-fashioned baptisms.

After our tour of my parent's childhood, we drove back home, stopping at a picturesque spot for a picnic lunch.




Getting ready for the blessing of the food.



Still naked.



Jen and I waiting for our turn.



Henry eating his spread.  Jon shared the rule he implemented at his ward's scout camp where every piece of garbage not picked up equalled five push-ups from everyone.  There were push-ups done afterward.  Possibly due to this kid.

The afternoon was spent in a variety of ways. Some kids went to the city pool.  Their strict rules against certain sized goggles and any kind of free play the way boys enjoy playing led some to the hotel pool.  During the downtime, Tara and I prepared dinner.  She made two pans of her famous chicken enchiladas and I made two pans of ground-beef with red sauce enchiladas.  It was a hot day and in a moment of inspiration, my dad suggested we cook our casseroles in his new outdoor grill.  Have you ever considered this?  After googling its safety, we took the risk and it turned out beautifully.  My dad maintained the 300 degree grill while we added the finishing touches of lettuce, sour cream, salsa, beans and queso and the house stayed cool(er) because we didn't have to turn the ovens on.  I wish we would have taken a picture because it was brilliant!

That evening, we enjoyed the community band playing a free concert in the bandshell.  The kids came and went - dividing their time between us and the large playground nearby.  And with no tent-issues that night, the whole day went down in the books as a very nice day.




I love this picture.  I love these people.

Daniel - 32 Weeks

Slow down. You move too fast.  We've got to make these good times last.

Seriously, I've got a seven month old that is in a big hurry to be one.  In less than one month, you have two, fully erupted bottom teeth, can pick up puffs and cheerios and put them in your mouth, can hold your own bottle (though you prefer to have someone else do the heavy lifting), crawl....everywhere, and now...as of today, your 32nd week birthday, you pull yourself up to standing.  OK!  I'm impressed!  You are super baby.  Now, you can try and stay a baby for a little bit longer.

Family Reunion 2012 - Wednesday, July 18

Even though I was a guest at my parent's house for a week and a half before the reunion even began, I was just as excited as everyone else for the official festivity to begin.  My parents, Maureen, Sarah, Jennifer and her kids and me and my boys greeted Emily's family first at 3:40 and then I left soon afterward to pick up Jay and Seth, who I had left behind while they attended scout camp, at the the airport.  By 4:45, my brother Jon and his crew arrived and my sister-in-law, Tara, was worried they were they last to arrive and eliminated from the race.  They were relieved to note that Jen's husband, Christopher, and Ansel were still en route and scheduled to arrive sometime after 8:00 pm.

While the cousins reconnected, my sisters went to Costco to pick up 5 pizzas for dinner.  Planning meals for 27 has to be one of the least fun parts of a reunion and it was nice to have something hot and ready with very little effort.  Sarah sliced and diced up a fabulous veggie tray and, predictably for my family, there was a nice big cooler full of various sodas to enjoy.  We ate outside and found shade where we could.  Chocolate cake and gluten-free brownies were for dessert and suddenly, without warning, we were having a feats of skill contest with the basketball pole.  The gymnasts were all able to pull themselves to the top with ease and some of the boys figured out ways up to the top.  Sam was being very nervous about trying, something a perfectionist who doesn't know if he's going to be perfect struggles with, so when he made the comment that he would try if I did, I think he felt like I wouldn't call his bluff.  I did, as this unflattering photo proves, and that broke the barrier for all the less-sure-of-themselves to try.  I guess they figured if their awkward looking mom or aunt could try, then so could they.

After everyone was there, I brought out a family jeopardy game I had prepared.  My sister-in-law, Stephanie, had such a fun family version for us on New Year's Eve and I wanted to create the same kind of vibe.  It was hard with all of the age differences.  I wanted it to be challenging for the older kids and adults but not so hard that nobody could answer anything and I probably made it too hard.  The rule was if a child didn't know the answer, they could ask ONE adult for help.  Then, if answered correctly, they could choose a prize out of whatever number question (100, 200....500) it was.  This didn't work very well.  The bags were big enough to see into and everyone started handpicking their prizes.  As there were a limited number of 500 questions and they were pretty much guaranteed a right answer with the help of an adult, groans and complaints were made about certain people choosing certain questions and I kind of lost control of the group.  Anyone that has ever served in primary can appreciate the feeling I had that I was in the midst of a sharing time gone horribly wrong.  Still, because reverence wasn't really an issue, I just tried to talk over them and I hope everyone learned something interesting about the great people that make up our family.

Because my parent's home is not large, the sleeping arrangements included all the kids in two tents out in the backyard, three of the couples staying in hotel rooms and Maureen, Sarah and Jay and I in the three extra bedrooms at home.  There were perks to both arrangements (we didn't have to go anywhere and had a door to close if we needed to during the day.  They had bigger rooms and private bathrooms) but there really weren't any hard feelings about who got to stay where.  Until after the first night.  14 excited little people aged 14 and younger makes for a difficult crowd to calm down and when their hyper voices were still being heard way too loud after 11:00 pm, we house stayers got frustrated.  Some  parents had already left to the hotel but Tara hadn't as of yet and went and sat in a camp chair outside the tents until they had calmed down.  Because I was tired and probably way overstimulated from the Jeopardy game, after two warnings, I yanked my kids out of the tents.  In hindsight, I know I totally overreacted.  That hindsight kicked in about 20 minutes after my kids were in the basement in their sleeping bags but, at that point, Seth was so mad at me he would barely speak to me.  I apologized to both Seth and Sam (Henry was fine and already asleep) and promised they could be in the tent the next night and went to bed feeling really bad.  Until the next morning.

At 5:30, I woke up after the fifth time that night (Daniel was absolutely awful the entire time.  I have never been quite so sleep deprived) to loud little voices outside.  The sun wasn't even up and all the tent dwellers were awake and being loud!  Again!  I heard my sister, Sarah, scolding them for being too loud so early in the morning and then I heard my dad scold them for being awake and loud and in utter frustration, got out of bed after nursing Daniel back to sleep (again).  Jay had already left for a run and so I was hoping that Daniel would be ok if I went on a walk to work out my sleep frustrations.  Since Sarah was up as well (everyone was actually up except for the poor children whose mean mother made them sleep inside.  They were out cold and got two extra hours of sleep than their cousins) she went with me.  We vented our over tired thoughts to each other for an hour while we walked.   I feel bad that the cousins don't have a memory of all sleeping together because each night after the first, parents took a few of their kids back to their hotel rooms or some of the older kids made the choice on their own to sleep at the hotel.  Not as festive as a group sleep over but the result was, I think, everyone got better sleep.  Well...maybe not the adults who originally had their own child-free hotel rooms.

Now for some pictures....

Caleb eating his favorite meal.

Connor having a slice.

The four girls stuck together most of the time.

Henry being....Henry (notice the orange soda already spilt on the shirt)

Dessert!

The adults finding the shade and having a "singular" conversation:)

Daniel entertaining all of us on the grass.  Notice the saying on his shirt.  It's been our mantra this summer.

Everyone was so great with him but it was especially cute to see my nieces love on him.

Natalie (only 7!!!) had no trouble getting up to the top.

Either did Ian.

  Sadie loved having a turn.

But....that chick struggled!

Even my dad got higher up than I did.

Sam finally tries

Henry gets a little help from his friends.

The boys are growing up.  Brendan is officially taller than his Aunt Tara but she's excited to still have a hair or inch on the rest of them.

These six boys are such fun to watch.  And, of course, Henry and Sadie, being the youngest, are always ready for a photo op.

The Jeapordy game.

Trying to engage them with loud, animated talking but I'm not sure it worked.

Natalie gets her question right...and some applause to boot!

Teens and tween boys express their love with lots of high fives and fist bumps.

It could have been the start of a rocky day but it wasn't.   We were ready to caravan to Drummond, the small town where my parents met and grew up....