From July 16 - 27

Tuesday - The day after the reunion

 Elise is 12 - Her turn at the Brigham City Temple with Josh, Elise, Noelle, and Marri

Uncle Mike did the baptizing.

Of course, after it is treat time. Having milkshakes at Peach City.

Working in the garden after neglecting it so much during the reunion.

Zach is not winking. He got a mosquito bite and his eye swelled shut.

This was not staged. Ben is his Mother's son. Love those peas!

Friday - Saturday

Marion and the boys came up. No pictures, but a lot of fun.

Sunday

Uncle Marc had a lot of raspberries and we decided a nice drive to Preston and visit with U. Marc in the raspberry patch sounded like a nice family time Sunday evening since we had to take Mike back to Logan anyway.  We took Noelle and Mallory with us.  They sure were a big help and enjoyed a tour of Grandma's old house.  We told stories and memories of Preston all the way up and back. We sure got a lot of raspberries.

Monday

Getting the raspberries ready to freeze. Chloe and Sammi

 Eating the raspberries is the best part! 

Nikki and Ben

 Nikki made this for Ben

I had to take a picture of my hand dipping in the warm parafin wax. It heats up my wrist and gets it ready for the physical therapist to work and stretch it. I think of you all when I get to peel it off my hand. Remember putting glue on your hand so it would dry and then peel if off.  This is so much better!

Ben with his favorite sentence: "My mommy has a baby in her tummy."

We are all very excited for them. 

Tuesday

It was Cleo Macfarlane's funeral today. It was a blessing for her to go, but she will be missed. Her and Jay have been married 70 years.

Canning for the ward in the family room.  It is just good to know more people in our ward have added to their storage.  It is not hard for us to set up the canner, but those who keep track of the money and order the food put in a lot of time.  Let me know if there is anything you want canned because we will put it away at the end of the week.

Thursday

We picked up Ellen from the airport. She has been at Tom & Mel's helping with kids and packing. He starts work in San Jose on the 12th of August.

We then picked up Caleb and came home to the Barn Burner Dutch Oven dinner and seeing Mike in Oklahoma. It was good to finally meet him.

Nothing like homemade play dough. I forgot how much I like this recipe. It is in my cookbook.

Here's the finished pizza.

 Pizza and breadsticks from Nikki and Sammi

 Friday and Saturday

Rob's family came and stayed with us this weekend.  It was so good to have them here. We called Noelle and Mallory down and we had a big snap purse production.

Mass production on Friday and Saturday

Noelle busy sewing

Marri and Noelle busy sewing their purses.

Nikki said, "Why do only old ladies do hand stitching?" This is proof that not just old ladies do it.

Thanks Tesha for helping with the purses and another sewing machine.

Here is Mallory and her new purse. Sorry it is sideways.

We sewed so much with the machine and then did a lot of hand stitching.  Nikki was so dedicated in hand stitching and piecing together scrap pieces of material.

We couldn't pass up this picture of Jetta with her 'wild hair.'

Mike introducing the kids to 'Studio C' 

Evening

We went to see Uncle Mike in Oklahoma at the Old Barn with Lacey and the girls, Shalynn and her 2 oldest, and Marri, Sophie, and Cecily.  It was so fun to go together and I think Mike enjoyed his own personal cheering section.

After the play

1828 Webster's Dictionary Word for the Week:

Design/Purpose-“purpose; intention; aim; implying a scheme or plan in the mind/Purpose- “That which a person sets before himself as an object to be reached . . . the purpose always includes the end in view.” Intention does not.   (Alma 43:9 - the design of the Nephites was to support their lands, houses, wives, children from their enemies. Preserve rights, privileges, liberty, so they can “worship their God according to their desires.”)

It is good to do a check on what our 'purpose' is in the things we do.

I love you all so much, and it is has been wonderful to spend time with so many of you.

  

Week of July 7, 2013 + 14 & 15th

I'm going into the week of July 14th also to finish up the reunion. Next week I'll start with the 16th.

Sunday

We have been watching Tom's kids this past week.  I got to church and realized I hadn't taken anything to entertain them at all, so I borrowed from Chris. It was good to have kids to sit with at church. I went in to the nursery with Cambria. It was fun to just watch her, Ben & Zach.

Sunday afternoon - Max putting a puzzle together with U. Joe and Grandpa

Zander keeps on growing!

Skit time! Here is Pirate Mallory

Princess Taylor

Max, Taylor, and Mallory

We all played hide and go seek - I loved playing this when I was a child.

Tesha giving rides to Cambria and Ben

  

Monday

Colleen knows how much Taylor loves horses and wanted to know if they all wanted horse rides.

Taylor and A. Colleen

Noelle, Max, and Caleb waiting for their turn.

 Ben and Cambria feeding the sheep.

Ben giving them seconds and thirds and fourths 

All done and petting the horse.

Max's turn

Noelle riding with Cambria - My favorite pictures are with cousins together.

 Tesha and Ben

Tesha and Zach

Ellen, breathing on the horse so it will get to know her:)

Saddle a bit small?

Mallory

Noelle

Ben, Grandpa, and Taylor walking back home.

Tuesday - Friday day

Getting ready for the reunion! I wanted to have most of the cooking done and have the gardening done, so we could take a break from it during the reunion.

Taylor watering the trees for us. It wonderful to have the well water, but when we turn on the pump we need to have 4 or 5 hoses going, so it gets pretty busy.  It was great to have Taylor here to water the trees in the orchard. 

Max and Cambria taking care of the raspberries! Yummmm

We harvested more beets. Cam and Max helped hold the bags open for Grandma.

Bubble Bath Time - Cam, Taylor, and Max

Making the strawberry topping for the French Toast for Monday morning breakfast

Cam and Ben were happy to lick the pan!

Getting things set up on Friday. I couldn't have done it without Joe and Tesha. Thanks so much. They put a roof over the castle, set up the cook stove, badmitton set, and much more.

Max reading 'Dick and Jane' to Grandma and Cam

 Ellen stirring the enchilada sauce. We had an assembly lines when we put them together with me, Ellen, and Dad. 

Friday night - The people that live away begin to arrive

Joe cooking scones for Navajo Tacos. It was wonderful to serve from Tesha's kitchen and walk right out and eat on the patio.  The Camp Chef kept the heat outside and the kids were better at throwing dishes away when eating outside. If I forget, this is the only way to cook scones.  I can't believe how fast it went.

 What a man!

Rolling the dough. It was the best therapy for my wrist yet.

Zach and Tesha

 Rob with Gabe and Tom in the back

 Jetta and Scott

 Josh - The big question - did he ever get full at mealtime during the reunion?

Cecily and Mallor at the table along with Caleb and Ben 

 As Joe would say, "Cute wife!"

 Gabe and Tom

 Love the shaded castle!

 So good to see the cousins play together so much. Max, Scott, and Caleb

 Playing Badmiton with Aunt. Mel

 Max

 Caleb, Ben, and Joe

 Ben shooting a marshmallow with his shooter.

 More Badminton - They had so much fun playing this all weekend.

 Ben, Joe, and Zach

 Mike shooting his marshmallows

 Bekah and Ellen - bonding together

 Zander and Levi

 3 year old time with Jetta (almost 3) and Cambria

Getting ready for Deer Tag. Does anyone know who first played this in our family? Did you make it up? Is it a variation of another game? They had a ball playing it all weekend every night. 

 Tesha, Marri, Nikki, Cam, Mallory, Elise, Olivia, & Caleb

 Sophia, Noelle, Mike, and Katrina

 Visiting in the front room - Gabe, Cam, Mel, Levi, Tom, and Eric holding Simon.

Eric & Amber came over to visit with Tom, so his kids were here.  Noelle, who can name every cousin on the wall, came up to me and said, "Is there some cousin I don't know about?"

Mel holding Eric's baby, Janey, their new baby. 

I just couldn't resist taking a lot of pictures of the deck sleep over. We had 2 queen size mattresses &  lots of little girl cousins, pillows, and blankets. They had a ball!

Saturday

Let's put a puzzle together while we wait for breakfast! - Chloe, Ben, and Caleb

 Trampoline time - Cam, Sammi, Cecily, Mallory, Bekah

 Time for breakfast - thanks Cierra for helping to cook the sausage/potato/egg mix

 I loved seeing cousins helping each other. Marri cutting up Chloe's pancake.

 Taylor, Tom holding Gabe, and Cam

 Mike, Colleen, and Cecily

 How many pancakes do we need to make?

 Taylor, Mallory, Cecily, and Sammi

 Mike, Noelle & Zander, Sophie, Marri, and Chloe

Ben had an orange mustache from the Tang

Let Avalon begin

I have no idea how many games of Avalon were played, but everyone had so much fun if the noise from it is any indication.
Marri, Noelle, Sohpie 

 Josh, Mike, Nikki

The kids had so much fun playing everywhere in the yard. It was so wonderful to see the kids have so much fun together.  Cousins that just haven't ever met ended up good friends.

Ben, Jetta, Chloe, & Zach in the back.

Ryan brought their little dog to the delight of the kids

Cam, Ben, and Jetta

 Let's Ride Mickey! Thank you so much A. Colleen

Waiting for a turn

 Nikki loves horses, so this was a great treat.

 And so does Taylor

 Max

 Sammi

 Jeffrey

 Cam, Tom, and Gabe feeding the sheep

 Dusty

 Taylor, Gabe, and Tom

 Suzie and Colleen

 Mallory holding Cambria with Tom looking on.

Sammi and Chloe

 Ben wanted Grandma to walk along the side with him.

 Caleb

 Scott

 Hold my had daddy and I won't be afraid

 Olivia

 Bekah

 Katrina

 Saying Good-Bye to Mickey - Olivia, Bekah, Katrina, and a very solemn Mallory.

They may be selling her to a place that works with disabled kids who need a nice gently horse.

Miscellaneous pictures before lunch.

 Chloe, Suzie, and Jetta

 Kaden jumping to Spencer, and John

The 'overflow' people playing Avelon

Steven, Elise, Sophie, Marri, Joe, Tesha, and Josh

 Teenagers horsing around

Lunch time - Shredded Pork sandwiches and side dishes.

It amazed me how much food we went through. I never would have guessed that we could consume 13 loaves of bread over the weekend.

Grandpa's famous root beer.

It worked so good to serve from the downstairs kitchen and eat outside.

 "I found an egg, Grandma."

 Suzie and Chloe - It won't take too long before it will be the real graduation caps.

Saturday Afternoon

Those playing Risk

Avalon

We planned to go to Riverside Park and eat dinner there.  Jennifer Jacobson was coming to take a picture of all the grandkids at the Park.  There was a big storm coming in and we moved the time up.  We got to the park at 5:30, just in time to get blown and rained on. It was impossible to take a picture or eat dinner, so we came home to eat and wait it out.
We had enchiladas and chips with cheese sauce. It definitely made a difference to eat in the house, but after a while the storm was over. We decided to have the picture taken down here on the hill out back.  I am so glad we did, because I think it turned out so much better:

We realized she had left out Ben, so she photo shopped him in and we are waiting for pictures from John's family and one of Audrey and she will put them in.  Then everyone will get good copies of it. I am so thrilled with the pictures and the prospects of having all the grandkids in one picture.

We decided to go back to the park and I'm so glad we did.  We went down at 8:00 for just 30 minutes and we didn't come back until almost 9:30.  It was one of the funnest times of the reunion. The little kids loved the park and the rest played baseball. Marion pitched, Rob played 1st, and Chris 3rd, and everyone had turns to bat. I had lost the camera and Tom took some pictures for me.  Here are the park pictures:

Taylor and Beckah cheering the batters on.

It was pretty late when we got back and bath time/clean up time took us till bed time.
I don't think I have enough pictures of visiting, because so much of that went on and we all know how much we love the visiting time.

Sunday
Val's dad works at Malt-o-Meal, so we had cold cereal for breakfast. What a treat and so easy!
Elaina and Max

 Ben, Zack, Tesha, and Scott

 Wake up, Ellen!

I had volunteered our family to sing at church. I didn't know it was ward conference at the time. No wonder Liz sounded so excited when I called here, because all she had was an intram hymn.
We had to have something familiar because we didn't have long to practice. However, I would have like to hear singing more.  Here it is at 8:40 and we are going over it pretty much for the first time.
It was, "Have I Done Any Good in the World Today" It was absolutely beautiful. I was sitting clear back in the gym by David's kids. Thank you all so much.  It was so wonderful to sit there and see you lined up singing and it sounded so beautiful.
Originally Liz had said she wanted 2 numbers, but we barely got one.  I was just going to tell her we only had one, but we were a bit late.  They announced 2 numbers, so Ellen and Mike filled in by singing "I Am a Child of God" 1st verse in England and then in Chinese. It was wonderful.

Of course the kids were all starving when we got home.  I had the gravy all made for Hawwaiin Haystacks, but we needed to wait for the rice to cook.  We hurried and made a big fruit tray.

 This only took a matter of minutes to completely disappear. We even added more fruit.

Lunch Time

Poor Mike - 2nd's just aren't enough

Poor Josh. He said how hard it was to be a teenage. You just can't get full.

Gravy was the only thing I had left. We even used 1 1/2 loaves of bread after the rice was gone

It doesn't take long to get hungry again.  Otter Pop time!

 Visiting took place in the living room the whole weekend.

 Levi and Zander - together again!

Tom and Mel had to leave at 3:00. Taylor and I share a birthday on the 15th, so we had a
Happy Birthday song for the two of us.  It was nice to have her here so close to our birthday.

 Sami and Taylor finally get to meet and became such good friends.

 The kids had so much fun picking the last of the peas and had a good time in the raspberry patch.
Sami, Katrina, Nikki, Robert, Mallory, Cecily

 Avalon with Ryan's family

We had a 1 minute share where everyone had a turn to share a talent or what their hobbies are. It ended up being very fun. Everyone was mostly excited to share.
Matthew holding his Dad's hand, David.

 Amanda and Robert

 Jeffrey

 The audience

 Isaac, Scott, and Caleb

 Joe holding Ben and Tesha

 Tammy with Bekah, Olivia, and Katrina (Pete had to go back home.)

 Marri, sorry I lost your head, Cecily, and Jetta

 Elise and Chloe

 Chloe showing us her "mean mommy face."

 Levi and Lacey

 John, Sue, and Spencer (doesn't he look excited to do this?)

 Cierra Rose

 Josh and Cierra

 Zander can smile so good!

 Colleen shared a story she had written that sounded like it was written by Dr. Seuss himself.

 Sami

 Chris

 Mike requested for Grandpa to read, "The Bear Story" by James Witcomb Riley
Grandpa captivated all the grandkids

This is one of my favorite pictures.

 Mallory and Colleen

Ryan 

 Cecily

Sunday Night - More Deer Tag

Monday - Willow Flat
We had about 4 loaves of bread turned into French toast with Strawberry topping along with bacon from Charlie.  He supplied us with 13 loaves of bread for the weekend and we used them all, unbelievable as it sounds.
Chloe enjoying the French toast

Scott with red remains

I had forgotten how beautiful Willow Flat is.  We had such a wonderful time. Next year I will try and get it on a Friday-Saturday.
Mallory, Bekah, Cecily, and Olivia made up the cutest birthday song for me. They are singing it.

 Fun in Cub River - Katrina and Noelle

 Levi

 Zander

 Hand and Foot game that Mari loved

 I got so many beautiful birthday bouquets - this is from Bekah

 and one from Elise

 Bekah, Scott, G-ma, Elise, Sophie, and G-pa playing 'Spot It'

 Another beautiful bouquet from Katrina and Nikki

 This was so much fun.  We were down at the bathroom and Chloe was in the bathroom singing at the top of her lungs.  The girls were all giggling because it was so cute.

 Then she came out; unaware of her audience

 We are on the hike and Ben had a spray bottle that really did cool us off.

 Chole was not so sure, though

 Such beautiful scenery on the hike to the spring. I just can't think of a hike I like more than this one. It is so beautiful.

 Ciera with a waterfall behind her.

 Levi looking on

 I took this for Joe. So pretty, and the background too.

Up at the spring

 Fill my cup full - Mike Notice the orange cooler in the background. Joe took it up and they put water in it and carried it back down to camp.

 Suzi and Chloe

 The dirtier you are, the more fun it is - Scott

 Tesha climbing around on the rocks with Ben

 Sami - "Give me more of that water."

 Joe took Josh on a hike to the top, which included climbing up rocks. Ben cried and had wanted to go, but it was way too hard. Josh loved it.

 It was so fun. I can't believe we didn't have more accidents. The kids just climbed all over.
Little Chloe

 Kaden has it easy!

 Ryan's family

 Mike with a beautiful background.

 On the way down.

 Scott and the gorgeous scenery

 I gave the camera to Mike and he took some beautiful pictures of the flowers.

 Mike and Katrina

 Grandma and Scott

 Zach having fun with Ryan's dog

 Val discovered flushing toilets, so there was excitement through the camp by the girls!

 Dinner time - Taco Salad

 Roasting marshmallows

 Happy Birthday to Grandma, and it was a very happy birthday

 Do socks that look like this ever come clean? They belong to Chloe

 Purple frosting from the cake - Marri

Sophie

 More beautiful scenery from Mike

 This is kind of like I felt also. But it was so worth it.

Thank you all so much for a wonderful time.  I love watching friendships develop at these gatherings, and it surely did at this one.  It was well worth the work and worry.
Thank you for being a part of our family.  Thank you for all your love and help.
I didn't proof read this, so excuse any mistakes. I know there are a lot of pictures, but that is so everyone can download what they want.
I truly have 'Joy and Rejoicing' in my family - Joy first with my children and
joy again, or rejoicing, with my Grandchildren.
I love life and Him who gave us this earthly experience and He who has made it possible to find joy in the journey and return again to live and be like our Father in Heaven.