The Bakers (with 1 B): Moving On--Roberts Reunion 2017

I'm now on my fourth post of this trip and we're only a week in.

Monday morning, July 31st, we were up early again and getting ready for yet another day of driving. This time 9 hours through Utah and then up again to Albion, Idaho. We were going to Caravan with Amber but then we were all in the car ready to go and Evan had to go potty so we left without them but they still beat us by an hour. To be fair, Henry had to poop, so made us stop 3 times in the first hour so he could go potty but refused to poop so we just kept having to stop. After a few threats, he still refused to poop but he also stopped asking to stop. Then we took a long lunch at Cafe Rio because we were going to be early to the reunion and we were told that under no circumstances would we be allowed in before 4. Whatever, we got there and had fun.

A few highlights:

*rock climbing and making it to the top without freaking out. I didn't repeal down properly but I made it to the top.
*thinking Greg was falling down the rock as he's screaming like a little girl while rock climbing--turns out he was getting attacked by wasps because he stuck his hand in their nest. Probably just as bad as falling.
*getting up on a wake board for the first time.
*not being able to get up on the knee board because I was holding the board wrong and laughing hysterically at my lack of muscles
*paddling around my favorite lake in the entire world--Lake Cleveland--for a morning and nearly having Henry fall asleep at the helm the water was so relaxing
*playing a near perfect game of Thump-Thump but then loosing at a bad bet. Sad story.
*being the score keeping at Thump-Thump and playing half the game before I realized that I hadn't written down a single score for our dealer Noah--oops. He had played a perfect game up to that point.
*teaching Rex how to play Thump-Thump and have him be a good player until he gets lead astray by Uncle Terry. Play to lose Rex, play to lose. He'll get there. He's just not a big enough loser yet.
*meeting Neal the Big Deal and Adrain for the first time.
*hanging out with some of my favorite cousins and getting to know the new cousins better.
*lecturing one of the new cousins (Liz) and why she needs to count out the number of decent childbearing years she has left and compare that to the number of children she wants and then realizing that she's only 25 and has plenty of time and getting called out by Devon for getting in Liz's childbearing business.
*Traci. She's alway a highlight.
*taking Greg out on a speed boat for the first time and finally understanding why he wants a sail boat--he'd never been on a speed boat.
*not seeing my kids for 4 days because they were too busy having fun with the millions of cousins. They each found a little clique of cousins their age and wore themselves out.
*my birthday, but that gets its own post.

Non highlights:

*Zora Jane being so nervous and confused by the mass of people that I had to hold her the entirety of the reunion.

Family reunions are basically the best thing and I'm so glad that my kids get to grow up in cousin cliques like I did.