We arrived home from Logan Saturday (July 28th) night. Sunday (July 29th) was our 6th wedding anniversary! We spent our anniversary going to church, unpacking, doing laundry, and packing again this time for the Maxwell Reunion. Real romantic I know but our real anniversary trip will be in a few weeks when we spend a week travelling through Oregon! Anyway Happy Anniversary!!
The Maxwell's are Russell's mom's family. They decided they needed to have another reunion because the last time they did, was when Russell and I got married which like I said before was 6 years ago. So my mom-in-law, LeeAnn, was in charge and she found this really nice Family reunion center in Joseph, UT called the Old Church and that's where we had the reunion.
The Old Church actually is an old church that has been remodelled and turned in to a vacation center. There were 7 bedrooms and a great room that had multiple hide-a-beds and sleeping mats for all of the kids. The Church is three stories so anywhere you went had these old stairs Colby and Emily are on. The only bad thing about that is that Colby thought he was bigger than he is and ended up falling down them a couple times. The poor thing had bruises on his forehead but he was okay other than that. The kitchen was huge with two ovens, a five burner stove, huge fridge and plenty of working space. The kitchen also seated 28 or so people.
There were probably about 40 people at the reunion which is all of Russell's Maxwell family expect one uncle, and three cousins (one on a mission, one at scout camp, and one cousin's spouse was working). We had a great turn out and everyone had a great time. We all had a blast playing pool in the great room:
and watching movies on the projector screen, having water gun fights, and just chilling and talking and playing games. Everyone arrived on Monday (July 30) and we got our room assignments. Russell and I got the only room on the third floor which was nice because we had our own bathroom! After unpacking and getting settled, the Farnsworth's made way too much delicious spaghetti dinner and we all ate our fill. Then we played some "Getting to Know You" games. That sounds kind of funny because we all know each other and we are all family but it was fun to hear what everyone had been doing over the summer and this last year. When the games were done, I put the kids to bed and hit the sack myself while Russell and all the older cousins stayed up and chatted and played games until one in the morning! Russell said it was so good to hang out with his cousins again.
The next morning (Tues, July 31) after we all headed to Marysvale to go four-wheeling. Well this is the funny part, okay to Russell it wasn't funny at the time, but when Russell went to start our four-wheeler, he realized he had brought the wrong key! He had grabbed the key to the 80 instead of the 400! I had to try not to laugh because he was soooo mad!! So we spent 2 hours or so trying to find somewhere in Richfield and Marysvale that could make us another key for our four-wheeler. Finally we found out that they would have to totally reprogram our four-wheeler key slot to make a new key so we decided it wasn't forth it and headed back to Marysvale to just hang out with everyone else that didn't have four-wheelers. This turned out to be just fine and we still had a good time.
Russell's dad even let us borrow his four-wheeler a couple times to ride around. Colby was so cute. Anytime he saw a four-wheeler he would point to it and say "Wanna Ride!" He even carried around his helmet until someone put it on him and took him for a ride.
While the others were riding, the rest of us just hung out at the picnic area and chatted, played card games, ate lunch, and just plain enjoyed the cool weather! Emily didn't even want to ride the four-wheeler because she was too busy finding walking sticks with all of her cousins. She was excited to find out that she had more cousins that she had never met before.
We did have one casualty of the four-wheeler ride:
Chris Maxwell took a spill on his little four-wheeler but lived to show off his scraps and scars. We all told him he was tough! Then when Russell and I were riding, we came across this wild apple tree growing on the side of the road. We stopped and picked a bunch of apples to share with everyone. I love wild apples. Which reminds me we need to go up to General Steam and pick some of those apples soon.
When we got back from riding, we went to the park next to the Church and played while the Phillip's made dinner that night.
Emily and Colby had fun playing on the slides and especially the teeter-totter. Paul and Alex came and played with us. Emily was so happy to play with them again because she has missed them since they moved up north.
After dinner that night, we got together for more games, this time it was "Minute to Win It"
First the groups had to balance four Ding Dongs on their forehead for 3 seconds. It was so funny to watch the older guys try it. Zach and Andrew Maxwell were finally the only ones to do it. Next the four siblings, LeeAnn, Charlene, David, and Jeanmarie had to unload a tissue box with one hand in less than a minute. Tissues were flying everywhere! When they were done, they had the little kids like Emily try to stuff all of the tissues back into the box in less than a minute. Emily had a blast playing.
The next morning (Wed Aug 1) the girls played beauty shop by braiding each other's hair. Okay it really started with just Traci braiding Jen's hair. Then Emily wanted to be just like Traci and hates being left out of anything so she started "braiding" (mostly twisting) Traci's hair too. Then McKenzie join in the fun and had Jen braid her hair too. It was definitely a fun photo opportunity.
And no family reunion (especially with this family!) would be complete without a big family picture:
As you can tell we were all really excited to be there getting our picture taken. This is a picture of all of the grand kids. I didn't get on of everyone because no one was there to take the picture but just so you know we were all squished together on those stairs!
Before we left to go home, Great Grandma and Grandpa Maxwell wanted to take a few minutes with Emily and Colby (as well as each of the grand kids) and give them a little toy and talk to them.
It is so nice to see your kids interacting and talking with their great-grandparents and it is great for them to get to know them as well. I never knew my great-grandparents so I think it is awesome that my kids do. We never know how much longer we have with these wonderful people because sadly we can see their health deteriorating each day. We have to enjoy every moment we have and these few minutes alone with them was perfect.
We had a great time at this family reunion. We definitely have to do it again and more often than every 6 years!
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