I have too many pictures to look through so that’s gonna wait, but so I can remember parts of the trip I’m doing the journal post now.
Saturday was the day of the actual reunion. We got to my Aunt Pat and Uncle Don’s house fairly early, or around noon. My father has one whole brother and three half sisters and one half brother. I met a lot of my cousins, many of whom I never knew existed. Most of them are a little older than I, by at least eight years. Some have children just seven years younger than me. Most of them grew up in Idaho, Oregon, or Washington. Places we never visited since they’re so far, and for other reasons such as by the third day of traveling my father would be completely annoyed with all of us kids, there are six of us. I’m sure the thought of being in a car for that long was probably too much. I am slightly grateful because trips to Utah were hard enough on me. I had to sit up front between my parents in our station wagon, since I was the youngest and smallest, until I was around twelve.
Sharma, my cousin Don Jr.’s wife, kept the kids occupied with different crafts. They decorated a folder to put the crafts in, made bookmarks, necklaces, etc. After we ate she gave the kids bubbles and side walk chalk to occupy them. Then even later in the day she organized the egg run races for the kids and adults.
I lost.
Lilah participated in two races. One with all the kids and one with the six and younger children, since the older kids were winning a lot. For the first race they had to run the whole length of the yard. For the second race they only had to run half the length of the yard. She ran the whole length and one of the cousin’s child suggested she get an award for the extra effort, so she got a pen that had both blue and red ink to it.
Eden was doing her own thing for most of the day. She also hung out with Amarah, my Uncle Mike’s granddaughter who is just two weeks older than her. I have pictures of them trading bubbles. They were really cute. She did the second egg run and lost like her mother.
Each family was in charge of a skit, song, or some activity. My Uncle Don had a quiz which you matched the fact with a person from his family. We had the girls, and I helped, perform the Wheels on the Bus. (I was going to do Oh Hey Oh Hi Hello, but we needed the CD and the wheels song had actions and more people could join in so I thought it would take the pressure off. ) The girls did really well. I wish I would have had someone record it, but I forgot.
My aunt Mary’s family dance to the Village People’s YMCA. Aunt Marcia’s family did a little skit where a cousin was placing their family members pretending to be trees, birds, the sun etc, and called it the gathering of the nuts. My Aunt Cheryl and her daughter sang to a Judd’s song and Uncle Mike did karate, while two of his grandchildren were to shy to demonstrate with him.
We had Christmas in August so everyone brought an age and gender appropriate gift. My Uncle Don was in charge of that and wasn’t taking any initiative on what or how to trade gifts, so I took the initiative and got them organized for the different ages and genders. He says he’s a good supervisor, but I think he needs to work on how to motivate his workers.
I liked meeting all these new family members and the girls had fun, despite some clinginess they had towards me. I’m sure all the people didn’t help. We had around 26 adults and about 25 children under the age of 18. It was busy.
I felt a little like the odd one out. My cousins that are my age didn’t come up, and everyone else was older than me or younger by at least seven years.
Sunday morning we ate breakfast at my Uncle Don’s house and then headed over to the cemetery where my grandma is buried. It was wet from a morning rain and the mosquitoes were out so after a few pictures my mom and I packed us and the girls back into the car. I had to keep swatting mosquitoes off of Eden’s legs and Lilah had one land on her finger. I got two out of my three bites that morning and luckily the girls were never bit enough to get a bug bite.
We traveled back to Ely on Sunday. We followed my Uncle Mike to Twin Falls, ID and ate Taco Bell with him, my Aunt Robin, and their three grand kids. My Aunt Robin had a new puppy, some very small breed so it was only 4-6 lbs. Lilah adored the dog and since they shared a balcony with us at the hotel so we snuck over there and held the puppy at night. Eden warmed up to the puppy, but since it still liked to nip and chew on people she was weary of her.
My dad hurt his ankle as we were leaving the hotel Sunday morning so we stayed at Andrea’s house while my parents got a ground floor room at the motel in Ely, our original room was upstairs and the only room that had three beds to it. Eden was not happy and wanted to go to the hotel. She eventually got over it and was fine sharing a room with Zarina and Lilah.
I stayed up talking with Andrea and Brien till nearly midnight and then slept on their couch. We all got up a little after 8 am, or when Zarina started making noises, and my parents showed up shortly after that.
After getting fed and ready to go we stopped and fed the ducks, geese and swan at a fountain area in Ely. The girls love feeding the ducks.
We took the long way home through Caliente, opposed to going through Lund. We stopped and ate lunch and then let the girls watch another movie for the drive home.
We got in around 4:30 and Eden fell asleep right as we got to town. The little stinker did not want to take a nap. I had her wait 20 minutes before she could draw after the movie was done and since she stayed awake I gave her the items to draw with and then magazines to look at. She was being stubborn, but maybe it was because she missed daddy.
Lilah told Jon lots of things that happened and then once Eden was awake she also told Daddy what we did on the trip.
I think I’m good for any long car rides for a while.
