The Roberts Reunion

We meandered home from the Robins Reunion on Saturday, did some laundry, chatted with some more family and went to bed.

Sunday (the 9th) was 9 am church, quick re-packing, even faster lunch and semi-quiet drive to Albion, Idaho.  That is until Rex just couldn't hold his pee any more and we had to stop thus waking Henry and Alice.  Henry cried the last hour to Idaho.

This year the reunion was in a restored dormitory for a normal school (teaching college).  We had the whole campus to ourselves--pool, hot tub, two play structures, bikes, stage, sand volleyball, lots and lots of lawn.  I hardly saw my kids.  It was glorious.  Not that I didn't see my kids; I actually really like my kids and I like hanging out with them, but I also like that they have some many cousins that they can run around having a great time for four days, so much fun that they don't look for me.  

Play structure #1

Rex being silly

Henry LOVED this bikes and was either being pushed or was pushing one most of the Reuion.

Found the boys in a giant bean bag in the game room one day

My sister brought her inflatable slide, which the little kids enjoyed.

Rather than a play-by-play, I'll leave you with a few highlights:

1. Cleveland Lake.  The end.  Seriously the most beautiful place on the planet.  There were wild flowers.  Real wild flowers that grew in the wild.  Not wild flowers that someone planted to be pretty, which is cool, but flowers that grew wildly of their own accord.  It was unreally beautiful.

Henry feel asleep on the way back. 

Alice refused to walk down the mountain.  Noah was nice enough to give her a lift.

All the Robins on the hike

I mean, really, magical.

All the kids picked huge bouquets of wild flowers.

2. Fishing.  I didn't go fishing, but Greg sneaked in a few hours here and there.  At Cleveland Lake, because it is so beautiful.

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3. Alice in her kingdom.  The second floor had an enclosed porch.  Alice lived there for the four days we were in Idaho.  My niece brought her clippy girls and Alice and Autumn and which ever other little girls were around at the time sequestered themselves to this porch and played for hours.  

Alice and Autumn hiding out.

She even played by herself.  She did not leave that room from breakfast until dinner.

Alice thought this was pretty funny.

4. Rock climbing.  Although I recently revealed my long-standing fear of heights (I tried hiding this from even myself for years, but just recently came clean when I realized that all the things I don't like--roller coasters mostly--are just too high for me), I still like rock climbing and I'm pretty good.  I just don't look down.  Rex even gave it a try.  He also did not get too high, but Greg and I are thinking of buying some ropes, and harnesses, and shoes, and carabiner, and...ok that's a lot of gear but maybe one day. Alice and Autumn had a good time bouldering with Grandpa Brian, while Henry was hot, tired, and sweaty and mostly just cried.  

  

I'm pretty sure this is me.

 Greg is the little blue dot.

 Rex giving it a try.

Alice and Henry doing some bouldering.

Henry taking a break from crying to eat.

Me again?

 Henry giving the whole rock climbing thing a try

Alice got very dirty.

5. Boating.  I am also good at water sports.  Man I'm awesome.  Or at least I used to be.  It's been a while, but my cousin Phil brought his boat so I signed the older kids and me up for a 2-hour session with my brother and his family.  I got up on the knee board the first time.  I really wanted to try the wake board, but we didn't have time.  

Getting ready for the tub.  I thought they'd be scared but they were asking to go faster!

Rex really surprised me by asking if he could try the knee board.  He got up on his second try.  I was impressed.

Alice being adorable

Rex didn't even complain a little about having to wear my cousin's daughter's YELLOW and pink life jacket.

6. Haunted house tour.  The other 4 buildings on the campus were boarded up but we all ponied up $1 to have a guided tour.  It was interesting.  The first building was just history, but the last three were decorated for the Albion Haunted House in October.  The third was the worst.  It had a flat roof that had caved in so birds had gotten in to the building and made a mess of the place.  And then somehow my aunt Traci and few others of us got separated from the rest of the group and Traci freaked out and tried to act like she was in control but she's also legitimately afraid of werewolves so it was pretty hilarious yet a little disconcerting at the same time because I was stuck in a poo-covered building with my 3-year-old daughter and semi-hysterical aunt.  I nearly wet myself from laughing, and freight.  We eventually found the exit.

7.  All other things family.  Every reunion, my mom puts on a dance contest and the Brian and Pattie clan win every time.  Truth be told, "we're all winners" according to Grandma, but we know who really won.  We also play a lot of cards.  Greg gets super into it and little competitive and upset and the Noah bets him or says something to diffuse the situations.  They always buy waaaayyy too much food.  I think my aunt bought at least 100 boxes of cereal for four days.  My kids were in sugar heaven.  There's a good reason I'm one of the few who can claim, I haven't missed a reunion--because I just love them.  I really do.

We made Preston do all the crappy stuff since he's the newest member of the family.

Empty seats just waiting of the dance competition

Getting 2nd or 3rd or 4th so something like that at Thump-Thump.  I'm pretty sure I beat Greg though.

Yes, we are all wearing the same shirt.

We left Thursday late-morning, stopped by a senior missionary couple who have served in our ward almost as long as we lived there, took a quick photo op at the Brigham City temple, and got home in time for naps and the beginning of the wedding.  That's part 5 or whatever part we're on.  It was a long vacation.

Brigham City Temple

Robins Reunion

Friday, August 7, the Robins Reunion began.  In the afternoon.

That morning, we took Rex and my sister-in-law Jess back to school shopping.  Jess is actually cool and knows what to buy  kids and how to convince them to buy cool stuff so I'm glad she came along.  My parents took Henry, Alice and Jess's daughter Korey to the Thanksgiving Point Farm.  My parents said Henry was crazy and tried to get into all the enclosures.  I said, yes he is.

Then the Reunion started.  It was at a Maple Dell Boy Scout Camp in Payson Canyon, about 45 minutes south of my parents.  We decided to rent a tent for $15 rather than pack one and $15 is cheaper than the gas to American Fork and back.  The Reunion was fun.  And too short.  I have probably mentioned this before, but I LOVE family reunions.  My family is pretty amazing.  They are funny, gossipy, and easy to be around.  And if you get sick of talking to one person, there's like a million other people to choose from.

Once we arrived, Greg and Alice took off to fish at a nearby pond.  Rex and Grandpa Brian left us too to go on a hike.  I thought about going on the hike, but did't think Henry could hack it.  Turns out the hike was pretty easy but Henry had fun climbing rocks and getting dirty with Korey.

Then we had dinner.  It was not good.  And I remembered why I always lost weight at Girls' Camp.  Than another hike, this time I stuck Henry in the Ergo and he screamed if I stopped moving but Rex and Alice had fun with whichever cousin was closest.  Alice formed a group with some older girls--my cousin's daughter Sophia (she's 9 or 10), and my other cousin's girls.  They gave themselves a name but I forget.  Rex hung out with Sophia's brothers Jacob and Jonas and my actual cousin Tyler, who is 7.   Then a family gathering to hear some stories, followed by a rain storm and s'mores, a few card games and finally a late bedtime.

The next morning, my uncle Moreno rented out the lake for swimming, canoeing, or row boats.  We had to pass the Boy Scout swim test to get in a boat and the water was green so I skipped that.  We all tried the rock wall; Rex, Alice and Greg did some archery; and when I went to try out the ropes course I saw my 80-something year-old Grandpa at the top about to do the zipline.  I didn't get to try because they weren't letting anyone else on by the time I got there.

Rex was a little nervous--even after jumping off the cliff at the Provo Rec Center

That's about as high as he got.

Alice being adorable.

That's about as high as she got.

Me--I'm actually pretty good at doing rock walls despite my newly-announced fear of heights.

Greg cheated and went even though he didn't have closed toed shoes on--he had Chaccos on and I had Toms.  Which one is really safer?

Korey being adorable.

Alice being adorable.

Greg showing off

Rex being a boy.

Alice and Grandma Pattie being adorable

Alice swimming in the nasty pond water.

In the red shirt: that's Grandpa Sune.  He's 80 something.

Then a disgusting lunch and some more chit chat and then time to go.  Really, I didn't get to see half the people I knew and didn't get to meet any of the people I didn't (this reunion is from my great-grandparents down so there are five-generations represented at the Reunion.  That's a lot of people).

Most people went home, but not us.  I dropped Greg and Henry off in American Fork for naps, and picked up Amber and Autumn to head down to Moreno's ranch in Provo to ride horses.  Only us, Glen, Laurie, Tyler, Noah, Leigh and Rudy were there so we got plenty of riding time.  And here's the thing about Moreno's horses: they're work horses so they don't do follow this trail without the rider doing anything. He just opens up a coral and you ride where ever you want.  It was fun.

Alice and Autumn not wanting to wait their turn.

Rex loved telling the horses what to do.

Uncle Glen led Alice around for a while.

These little girls did a good job sharing.

After that, we hit up J-Dawgs for dinner and home for an early bedtime.

Part 2

Me and my cheesecake on my birthday

Since the drive was such a large part of our trip (nearly 1/3 of the time we were gone) and such a long post, it was part 1.

Now onto part 2.

Part 2 was the few days we spent in Utah just our family.  We like to get in a few days before the rest of the family to allow our kids time to adjust to the time change, recover from the odd sleeping habits of driving for four days, and to do a few things that the rest of the family may or may not want to do.

Monday, we did the dinosaur museum in Vernal.

My grandparents dog-sat my aunt's dog for a few days while we were there.  Henry was in LOVE.  All he wanted to do was play fetch.  Too bad Henry can't really throw a ball yet.

Tuesday, we went to Salt Lake.  My kids love Salt Lake, especially the temple.  It's their favorite.  This year we decided to ride the FrontRunner train from American Fork to Salt Lake.  Alice put this on our bucket list.  And check this out: FrontRunner has a 4 people/$10 all day deal and babies (Henry) are free.  I saw lots of groups of four adolescents on the train.  Good job FrontRunner.

Alice on the train.

Those mountains--triple heart eyes.

A rare moment of not fighting on the train

Family photo at the JSMB

Their favorite temple.  Just after this, we got kicked off the stairs by a wedding.  So many weddings.

Once we arrived, we ate at the Nauvoo house (delicious) and did a tour of the Joseph Smith Memorial Building (Hotel Utah).  Did you know that they hold church meetings there?  Mostly just senior missionary couples, but still, two wards meet in that building.  It's so beautiful.  Then we did a lap around the temple.  Then Henry went crazy for a nap so Greg took him for a walk while the older two and I sat in the last few minutes of an organ concert in the Tabernacle.  With Henry asleep, Greg stayed with him and wrote a few emails (the hazards of running your own business) while the big kids and I checked out the visitor center.  Then we rode the train back to American Fork.

Rex discovered Grandma's Super Nintendo and Alice and Henry didn't leave the closet under the stairs.  And I didn't care.  It's vacation for all of us.

Wednesday Greg said he wanted to try something different--something that we hadn't done before.  I spent Tuesday night looking for something new and discovered a hot pot (hot spring) on the north end of Utah Lake in Saratoga Springs.  The "Utah Lake" part should have been a give away.  It was a trash hole.  A hot trash hole.  I got in because, dang it, we drove all the way out there then walked the quarter mile to the hot pot we were going to have fun.  I put Henry in but he just screamed and then Alice held her feet next to her ears.  It was pretty hot.  After about 10 minutes, we decided to just go to the Provo Rec Center.  Rex went down slide after slide and then surprised Greg and me by jumping off the high dive without any prodding from us.  We just looked up and there he was about to jump.  Of course, Greg and I had to do it.  Rex had to prode me quite a bit before I finally jumped--I really hate falling.

We again finished the night with Super Nintendo and toys in the closet.  Greg took my grandpa and sister's finance (now husband) shooting that night and Hannah came down to hang out for a while.

Thursday, we headed to Provo again.  We went to the BYU Palentology Museum, which Greg had never been to before.  Rex and I used to go every few weeks when we lived in Provo.  Rex and Greg did the nerdy thing and read every card to every dinosaur.  Alice, Henry and I took pictures and compared our sizes to dinosaurs'.  For such a small museum, we had a really good time.  Then we went to the BYU Museum of Art, most of which was closed for renovations.  We got to see two exhibits, which was plenty for us.  I wanted to show the kids what a real art museum looks like after we made our own this summer.  We finished the day with ice from the Creamery on Ninth and a brief walk around campus.

Finally, more Super Nintendo and toys in the closet when we got back to American Fork.  My parents arrived with Jess and Korey (my sister-in-law and neice) past bedtime.

So ended part 2 of our month-long vacation.

Alice really loved drinking the milk out of her cereal with Grandma's straw bowls.

BYU Palentology Museum--this is why dinosaurs are bigger than people--Alice

Alice got the Pink Sparkle ice cream--as suggested by the server--all little girls like the Pink Sparkle she said.

Rex got a double scoop.  He still owes me $2 for not finishing it.

All my favorite things in one picture.

I went on a long, dry beautiful run all over American Fork.  It was glorious.

Oh look, it's the boys playing Super Nintendo.