Class of 1995!

He doesn't look old enough to be going to his 20 year reunion, does he?  On our way home from Preston we stopped at Burger Bar to start the ball rolling on high school memories for this guy.  The kids wanted to go to Arctic Circle for a shake, I made the comment that I hardly remember a trip to Preston without a stop at the Polar Bear (which is now closed :( ) so Ethan was happy to make dreams come true for one and all in Roy.  

He was excited to attend his reunion...that is, until we pulled into the parking lot, then he got nervous.  But we made it into the school and took a trip down memory lane!

He should really be the one writing about the experience, maybe he will... my experience of the night was that I was proud to be on his arm.  He is clearly the best thing to have come out of Roy High and I am a blessed lady.  :)  It was fun to meet some of his old chums and some of the girls who had crushes on him back in the day.

He even won a prize!  He answered a question about who played the Mormon with two wives in Paint Your Wagon-the musical their senior year.  He had seen a clip of that very thing on a video moments before the question was asked so he knew the answer!  We won a delicious loaf of Great Harvest Bread and considered it dinner since all they were serving was cookies!

None of his cross country crew made it which was a bummer for Ethan, not even Ron!  I guess he had car trouble or something... Before we left his name was drawn out of the bowl for another door prize so we got a gift certificate for a local restaurant that we will have to hit up next time we're in town.

We ended the night with a stop at Wingers which is a sentimental place for us.  It was lovely.

Jolly Hollidays in Preston 2015

My dad planned a family reunion for all his siblings and their kids for the week we happened to be in Utah!  We were originally planning on going down to Zion and then up to visit family but once we found out it was the same week as the Preston reunion we talked to the kids one on one and asked each of them what they would rather do and they all without skipping a beat chose Preston (well, Levi was a little torn since he loves adventures like his momma and he'd never been to Zion, but the draw of family and the farm/campground was too much to resist so he chose Preston, too).

I think its safe to say that they all are more than happy with the choice they made!  We had a fabulous time!  We drove up on Wednesday and were greeted by my dad's two sisters and his brother along with all of brood.  Not to mention my awesome brother Richy who was so kind to travel with 5 kids solo while his fabulous wife was at girl's camp with their 12 year old daughter.

None of my dad's generation camped with us, but Richy and his kids, my cousins Katie and Jill with all their kids and my cousins Anne and Marissa all stayed the night.  Between the four of us that have children we had 22 kids under 15 there!  In fact only two of the kids were over 10!  My kids were in HEAVEN!!!

Add to that heaven a litter of kittens in the ditch and you have a recipe for a perfect campout in the eyes of these poor deprived children.

The wagon continues to be the best toy ever invented.

Katie brought some sparklers to share!  It happened to be Preston's celebration week so fireworks were totally legal (I guess).

We set up our tents and put sleeping bags in them and then the kids all decided that they were going to sleep with cousins.  I was worried that no one would get any sleep but I think they did pretty well.  We got up in the morning and started making breakfast.  Richy found this gigantic bug just inside the pavilion.  It was quite a site for the kids to see. For a frame of reference this is one of those big 16 oz red plastic cups that is in.

Traveling with Richy is so easy.  He almost always takes care of the food and he feeds us sooooo well!  He made yummy pancakes and eggs for breakfast.  He even made blackberry syrup!  Bryant has his mom's butterfingers grip and dumped 3/4 of it out but we enjoyed what we could of it.  Jonas thought it looked like blood... Oh, my kids are so silly.

Bryant's mishap landed in Porter's lap so we hosed down his clothes the rest of the time we were there.  Katie's dog, Cinnamon, was soooo funny!  He would bark at and try to bite the stream of water from the hose.  We laughed so hard at that silly dog!

The kids had so much fun just wandering through the farm/campground.  It was so nice to just let them be free and happy.  Sometimes I wish we lived in a world where kids could have a childhood like I did or even better, like my parents did.

These two boys caught a tiny mouse in a field.  It was pretty exciting.

Richy, game designer extraordinaire invited us to play one of his games and it was fun!  Except that little stinker Porter totally prevented me from winning and I was SO close!!!

It has been YEARS!!! since I've seen Jill.  What a treat to see her and her wonderful family!

Poor Porter really wanted to play games more and his mean Auntie Kim is such a party pooper.  Hopefully he'll still like me!  I sure love him.  He just hung out with the grown ups for the most part while we were there.

Even though Grandpa had bought the kids swim suits I didn't bring them with us to Preston and we regretted that.  But thankfully we had enough clothes that they could get one set soaked in the sprinkler!

Bryant didn't get wet, but rather played bocce.  Doesn't he look dapper?

As the sun set we had a rowdy game of 500.  It was so fun to see all these kids just have so much fun together.

As you can see the kids were pretty wiped out by the end of the day.  Katie is a champ with three of her six all sleeping on her.  She's going to be flying solo while her hubby deploys soon.  Say a prayer for her, I know I'd need all the prayers I could get.

Friday morning the kids all sat around the fire pit and talked.  Its kind of strange to have kids that will just sit and talk with other kids.  I guess they're growing up!  We got to hang out until late afternoon Friday and then we headed back to Ethan's parent's house.  Ethan had a big night ahead...

Grandma & Grandpa Great's House

We were blessed to have the chance to go down to visit Ethan's grandparents for the afternoon while we were in Utah.  While we were there everyone thought it would be fun to take a dip in the pool.  The big boys found some suits in the changing house, but these littles were out of luck...

Jonas was happy as could be that Grandpa Great shared some yummy cookies.

But Grandpa Scott to the rescue!  He went down the road and bought them all suits!

Fun, fun, fun was had by all!

Abraham was also happy to have some of Grandpa's cookies.

Abe, who is usually terrified of the water, was excited to ride on his daddy's back (once Jonas was done swimming Ethan took a turn in his suit).

Ethan also had to show off his mad skills on the diving board.

Grandma was in the hospital last time we were in Utah so it was so awesome that we got to spend some time visiting with her this time.  We missed her last time!

Scott showed us where he fell out of the apple tree a few years ago-Ethan was kind enough to reenact the accident for us.  Thankfully, Scott is doing much better these days, though he was still leery of getting down on the ground under the tree, I can't imagine why. Ha!