When we first arrived in Utah, Mark and Paula were on the Oregon Coast with Heather and her family. Because Heather had to work over the reunion, they decided to bring the three oldest Kirkhams back home to Utah with them so they would be able to attend. They were in Highland for three days, then Camille took them to Cedar City to visit their other Grandma while she visited her family. They all got back in time for the reunion.
During their first three days in Highland we got to do some fun things with them. That first Monday we just stopped by on our way home from our visit with Sarah in Santaquin, but on Tuesday we got up in the morning and went on a hike in Albion Basin with Meme.
The dirt road that goes up to the Cecret Lake trailhead was closed, but we had fun walking around under the ski lifts, admiring at the earliest summer wildflowers.
Grace was a most excellent cousin, and helped Annie to have a good hike.
They had to explore every rock pile.
We just kept trucking along the trail. How cool is Meme?!
We hiked all the way up to Alf's restaurant, but skirting the construction zone seemed pretty intense, so we took a picture and called it good!
Attempted selfie of all.
Vivien and Annie are curly because they begged me to put some curlers they found in the Alworth's bathroom cupboard in their hair.
Vivien loves her young cousins and feels a great sense of responsibility for their happiness (she told me it's the oldest child's job to come up with all the fun games for the little kids; I shed a little tear of pride), but I think she had a lot of fun hanging out with her older cousins.
We had a picnic lunch on the brand new picnic tables down in the parking lot. Grace hid from the sun.
Here's one more of Annie's curls. Big sigh. How did Drew so completely win this genetic game in our progeny?
On our way home Paula encouraged us to stop at Meme's and have little kids use the bathroom. It was supposed to just be a quick stop, but the isolation from COVID has been pretty awful for Meme, so we ended up staying for about 2 more hours.
We pulled up some chairs on the grass and she gave us Creamies. She told me she'd had a message from Clair (Drew's grandpa who died before we got married). She woke up one morning and received three distinct sentences, one at a time. "Hang in there. Take care of our little place. I love you." We pulled some weeds and she told me all the things she's had done to save this giant tree in her backyard (did you know you can give a tree an inoculation?). Paula said that tree just really needs to live until she's gone. Be fair, universe!
We moved our stuff over to the Forbes when we got back so the kids could get the most out of their time together. In the morning we did all our practicing...
...Grace let Rafe talk her ear off about all the game strategies and secrets...
...and Merrick got a tickly love from Grandma Paula.
Then we met all the people at the aviary...
...and went to Sonic.
The right side of the car went to Sleepyland on our long drive to the Provo Rec Center that afternoon.
But they perked up just fine once we got there! It is an awesome place. There is the outdoor pool that has a large shallow kid pool with play structure, a couple huge slides, and a wave pool, and there is a whole indoor pool area with a lazy river, another shallow kid pool with play structure, two slides that time your run so you can race, a "cliff" to jump off of, and a climbing wall that lets you fall back in the water when you're done. Vivien jumped off the cliff! By herself! Without any prompting! I don't even think she told anyone; I just happened to turn and see her standing there about to jump with a little smile on her face. I was very impressed. Here were the fountains in front:
The day after the girls left for Southern Utah I went on my camping trip with my siblings and the kids stayed with Mark and Paula. Here is the Rafe I found helping Papa Mark to fix a broken sprinkler when I got back.
The Forbes reunion had been scheduled for July 1st for months. Drew was supposed to be able to drive the truck back to Utah after work on June 30th in the early afternoon, but someone at work got exposed to hydrofluoric acid, had to go to the ER, and then reported it to OSHA, so Drew ended up having to stay at work all day handling that before he could finally get on the road. He drove all through the night and slipped into bed with me about 5:30 in the morning. He had been alone at home for two weeks at this point in our vacation, so when I rolled over and gave him a hug, he sighed, "I haven't been touched for awhile!" When his brothers arrived in the morning they ran downstairs to greet him and found they were all wearing coordinating shirts.
We loaded everyone and every needful thing of fun into the car and drove out to Hanna, UT to check in to the Warm Springs Resort. There was a tiny cabin for every family.
Even for Meme!
We brought our sleeping bags so we didn't have to wash sheets.
The kids sleeping in the big house missed the memo and slept in the sheets with their sleeping bags on top, like a blanket. So close.
There were beautiful wildflowers growing all over the property. I think they were purposefully planted wildflowers. Are flowers still wildflowers if you plant them somewhere on purpose?
The cabins were a short walk from a big grassy area with a swing set and access to a good wading spot on the river.
And just down the road a little way...
...there was a small lake with paddle boats on the dock and kayaks and paddle boards in the boat house.
Everyone came down to check it out Wednesday afternoon and spent an hour or two floating on the water. I took a lot more pictures here when we came back on Thursday.
We split up the meals for the reunion, and I was in charge of dinner Wednesday night. Melanie and Camille were super nice and helped me prep all the kebabs while the kids were doing crafts at the pavilion. We made A LOT of kebabs. We had thought there was going to be a grill at the picnic pavilion, but what was actually there was a stone oven sort of thing with a grill rack in the middle of it. We made the most of it and cooked the kebabs over coals. This was all that was left. Not pictured were the shrimp and pineapple ones that the kids loved.
Later that evening...
...while the kids were, um, meditating...
...and playing games...
...we played some Ninja attack on the lawn.
I don't think we've played it together since we were this big:
There were definitely some casualties. It takes a little while to remember that you need to not keep your hands in front of your face if you don't want someone to accidentally smack you when they go for your hands. Seth was a very good ninja with his long arms.
When it got dark we gathered around the firepit for stories. Drew told some epic myths about Cuhullin, and Daniel told a story about a duck who lent some money to a shifty guy and how he got it back.
That night Marcus attracted a giant moth.
And the kids walked back from the campfire with their little lanterns they had made for their craft.
In the morning we woke up and had a hearty pancake breakfast with sausies on the side, courtesy of Daniel and Camille.
Then we went for a hike.
We walked along the road all the way up to the mountain, then we followed the diagonal cut up to the saddle.
Ta da!
Unfortunately the trail was not really a "trail" (I would call it an unmaintained 4-wheeler road), so it was pretty rough for the little kids, it was completely exposed so it was hot, hot, hot, and the whole mountain seemed to be made of sage, which I am rather allergic to. It almost got to the allergy attack proportions of my teenage Tetons days where I lose all my senses.
At least there were giant puff balls.
And cousins to suffer with!
After the hike, Mark dropped off me, Jessie, Seth, and Drew to float the river on tubes while everyone else watched our kids at the river. It was a pretty technical float with lots of strainers (both tree and barbed wire), shallow rocks, and currents that pushed into the sides, but when the river was quiet there were so many birds to see! We watched flocks of cedar waxwings feasting in the berry bushes lining the banks, and killdeer scurrying down the sandbars trying to avoid us. In one of the relaxing stretches Drew told me about an evening he had spent with our friends while I was gone, when they had discussed what kinds of cars the wives are. Bo is an expensive sports car, Hillary is a VW bug (high maintenance in a different kind of way), and Drew told me that he felt like I am his beloved pickup truck that can go anywhere and carry anything and is highly useful but can still seat 6. I've never felt more honored.
When we got back it was time for Marcus, Melanie, Daniel, and Camille to float the river. I had accidentally popped one of the tubes on a submerged branch during our river run (it was about 10 minutes from the takeout and I quickly rolled up the deflating tube around the leak to pinch it off, then hugged the remaining air to my chest so I could still float), so Marcus had to take one of the smaller black tubes.
I watched the kids and Uncle Drew building a big circle of rocks in the middle of the river for awhile. I helped a couple of them get in to float a small section of the river too. Drew handled the extractions.
I tried to talk to Gabe who was playing in the dirt on the shore, but I think Gabe takes offense at my very existence, so it wasn't a very successful conversation.
I had been tasked with picking up the second group of floaters. I got to the takeout and parked the truck, then the medication I had taken to slow my allergy storm kicked in and I passed out on the front seat of the truck for however long it took the floaters to get to me. We came back to kids relaxing in the shade watching Grace play games on her tablet...
...and then kids sitting in the house, waiting for everyone to be ready to go to the lake again, passing time by watching Grace play games on her tablet.
Melanie was in charge of lunch this day, but I can't remember when we ate it. We had taco salad, where you make your salad in a bag of chips and eat it right out of the bag, so that was kind of fun! We did eventually make it back down to the lake. Here's a good view of the boat house and the dock and the swing.
And a little time lapse of all those watercraft, scooting around the lake.
It was a beautiful day in Hanna!
Vivien wanted to be a pond scum farmer.
Rafe had a great time perfecting his stroke.
And how cute is Ms. Annie with her Papa?
Anya helped Rafe learn how to paddleboard.
He was braver than me. I wouldn't trust my balance to keep me from tumbling into a pond full of this:
We came back for some more relaxing on the grass, watching Max eating watermelon...
.
..and tired Ava throwing herself about while Camille looked on lovingly.
Grandma Paula figured out how to divvy up assignments for the morning clean-up.
Papa Mark figured out how best to tease his grandchildren (do you like how his shirt matches the hammock?)
One more from this little moment, because they're so cute!
Ok, and one more of these cousins together.
That night for dinner Jessie made delish Cafe Rio salads.
I looked over about halfway through dinner and noticed Everett sitting alone at the table, holding a dripping ice cube in his hand, and saying in a zoned out sort of way, "Mommy. Mommy come to me. Mommy." Then I realized he had thrown up and needed help (he inherited Marcus's strong gag reflex). We got him cleaned up. Well someone else did. I took a picture instead, cause I'm super helpful.
After eating so much dinner, we played running games! Here are two sneaky uncles trying to catch an unsuspecting Rebecca on her turn in red light, green light.
The games turned into a big Uncles Tickle and Wrestle Fest.
It was highly entertaining.
Even poor Grace got dragged from the house for her tickling turn.
It was a little too much excitement for Ava.
I can't remember which day this happened, but Everett really wanted to teach us a game of his own devising. He was trying to explain the rules to us in his special Rett way. It felt a lot like Finding Nemo, but he was getting sad and frustrated, so we gave it a shot. This is about how the game went:
Rett: When you get caught you go around crazy, like AAAAAAHHH, ok? Ok. Kneels on the ground. Now, tell me what time it is.
Me: It's 3:00.
Rett: NO! Ask me what time it is.
Me: Oh, ok. What time is it?
Rett: Pauses with a sneaky smile. It's LUNCH TIME!
He jumps up and starts to chase people. We "run." He catches Grace. She throws her hands in the air and really milks it as she falls to the ground screaming like crazy, then lies still. Rett looks up. That means... He jumps up, whirls around, and points authoritatively at the first person he sees, which is Anya standing about 6 feet away. YOU'RE OUT!!
You just can't beat summer nights on the lawn with people you love!
I was able to convince everyone to play a little juggling game we used to play in high school. The ball has to be juggled a predetermined number of times (we went with 4) and it cannot be juggled more than 3 times by any single person. Once the ball has been juggled 4 times, anyone can catch it and throw it at anyone else. You're supposed to get a letter for every time you get hit and be out when it spells a word (I think we used to call the game K.I.L.L.), but we had enough trouble just juggling to 4, so we didn't worry about people getting out.
It didn't take long for us to realize that we needed to have the ball far, far away from Seth and his long arms and volleyball skills when the ball got anywhere near the fourth juggle.
That night around the campfire we roasted marshmallows by filling an ice cream cone with chocolate chips, stuffing a marshmallow on top, wrapping the whole thing in foil, and sticking it right in the coals. Then Uncle Daniel told another story while preparations for the skit were made (I can’t remember the story, but the repeated part was “Drinking, and splashing, ooo! And drinking, and splashing, aaah!” with a funny little dance). For the skit Marcus and Jessie played two German doctors (Melanie and Seth played their hands) doing punny and disturbing exploratory surgery on Anya with questionable sterile technique. It was wonderful!
Here is Daniel, ready for action the next morning. Daniel and Camille were good sports sharing the house with all the kids.
Here is Rafe eating his breakfast parfait in his own special Rafe way.
Here is a Merrick who looks horribly injured but is actually only a little bit injured. Marcus walked up assuring us in his best doctor voice, "It looks a lot worse than it is!"
Here is Seth, posing with the sign on the way out after we dropped off the trash.
When we got home the kids watched Anya play Zelda.
But then it was rocket time! I love all these dads helping their kids make rockets.
Rafe was very pleased with the outcome.
I didn't get a picture of everyone's because I manned the compressor for awhile. But here is Rafe's.
That night Drew set up the projector and we watched Frozen 2 out on the lawn. It was a good movie for outdoor watching, but we're going to need to get a better sound system for outdoor movies. The world is noisy! The next day was the 4th of July. We decorated bikes with patriotic things, then rode them over to the park in the morning. The boys filled up the Zorbs...
...and brought them over...
...and we rolled the kids around the hills for awhile. I also got myself stuck upside down, with legs kicking wildly in the air.
We had a good game of slip-n-slide kickball, and a couple Zorb ball relay races.
Also this happened.
Then this happened, and it was time to go home.
Here is Jackson, feeling betrayed that the person who was supposed to help him carry his Zorb back to the car abandoned him.
Back at the house we filled up water balloons...
...for water balloon volleyball that eventually devolved into target practice.
The kids did a craft while Marcus and Melanie went to the Haskells.
Faces of concentration.
I like how Annie's butterfly turned out.
Then there was Mario Kart; Seth made up the heckling section. It was his birthday, so it was allowed.
We had tasty grilled pork chops and corn on the cob for dinner, and we got to celebrate Seth by eating a lot of chocolate cake in his honor. Then we all took a moment to digest.
Camille taught us some line dances in the evening, and we gave her a hard time about the Electric Slide not having enough steps because it feels weird that it didn't divide nicely into 8 counts like we remember learning it in high school. She handled our reluctance with grace and continued on unperturbed. I had to look it up just now. Apparently the original dance was choreographed by Ric Silver in 1976 and had 22 steps, because his birthday was on the 22nd. There are a couple different variations, but the 18-step "Electric Slide 2" became popular in 1989 and was the number one dance for 10 years in Linedancer Magazine. Ric Silver apparently hates that they changed his dance and attempted to sue people about it. I personally like my beginning step of the dance to line up with the downbeat, so I'd be happy with a 20-step compromise!
When we were all good and sweaty from line dancing (and our calves were sore from the fast one Camille taught us at the end that involved a lot of hopping about on one leg), we went into the front yard for fireworks. First everyone on the firing squad was given a popper.
Then sparklers!
And by that time Marcus was ready for his show.
We lined up at a safe distance.
The anticipation was high.
I am including this picture because I failed to get a video of the best moment of the fireworks show. On the left you see fireworks stacked on top of each other with their fuses twisted together. Melanie pleaded with Marcus to be smart and safe and not combine fireworks, but he did so anyway. The first one he lit went off, and then sent an exploding firebomb flying directly towards him that he had to deftly dodge. Unsettled, he uncombined the rest and proceeded through them without incident. All in all a very strong show!
After the littles were put to bed we climbed up on top of the roof to see what we could see of all the big fireworks shows across the valley.
It was awesome!
The kids got to sleep out on the lawn together that night.
Paula brought out a time capsule from...I want to say 20 years ago. Drew's questionnaire was empty (too cool for school at the time), and my favorite answer from Marcus's was in the space that asked him to write down his testimony: "I don't want to." It was my favorite because it makes me feel better about how much my kids hate all things church and Sunday right now.
Sunday morning we woke up and had to get Drew on the road. I had taken a bunch of stuff off of Mom's hands when she was purging for her move and had been storing it at Kaitlyn's house in the interim until Drew came back with the truck to take it home. I went out to the van intending to go over and get a head start on bringing the stuff up from their crawl space when I discovered that our one and only van key had disappeared from my key chain on my purse. Noooooooo! I think it fell off at some point in Hanna. Daniel and Camille let me borrow their van for the morning so I could at least get Drew off before dealing with the crisis. Kaitlyn's neighborhood always has cool birds flying over it.
I don't remember much else of this day, except that Mrs. Forbes had put together a cool unit on America the Beautiful and the author, Katherine Lee Bates for the kids. The USAA roadside assistance guy came to open up the car that night so I could get the VIN from the glove box.
On Monday morning I borrowed Daniel and Camille's van again so I could drive to the Kia place and get a new key made. I think we spent the afternoon hanging out, then we went up the canyon for dinner. Grandma Paula designated an area away from the swift current for safe wading.
And of course there were boulders to climb.
Look! Grace even smiled with teeth when she got up on top!
We walked up the river aways and saw a ginormous rock that fit everyone comfortably.
"Oh it's fine to recline on the flat of one's spine!"
On the walk back to the parking lot we passed a guy who was catching a fish every other time he cast out his line. He let the girls take turns reeling them in.
We also found a log that was good for a photo op.
These are the girls' "serious faces." I'm afraid.
On Tuesday Mark and Daniel returned from their weekend moving trip in Reno, heavy laden with all the things that don't fit in Uncle Lee's life anymore.
This was my favorite treasure from the loot.
It got to be a little overwhelming looking at it all, so I went in and watched Jessie frost the macaroons the girls had made.
This cast-off chair from Uncle Lee was a favorite with the grandkids, since it both rotated AND reclined.
Wednesday we said a sad goodbye to the Kirkhams, and to their YouTube videos of gamers.
And Merrick said goodbye to his best playmate. They actually did much better this trip together than I was expecting. They're both getting older! Hurray for these twinners!
Then we went to the dentist. I was pretty sad to see they had redecorated their office. No more James Christensen paintings. Everything is white, white, white. Rafe has a molar that's growing into the root of one of his baby teeth. Dr. Greenwood described a torturous procedure we could do right now, or we could wait until he's 10 and he'll need braces anyway, because he has little pegged laterals that probably won't push his front teeth together all the way on their own. Should be fun!
When the cousins were gone the only thing there was to do was play games with mom. Games like YAHTZEE where you cry because you don't get the things you need.
Or you could always fall off the play set onto your face instead.
They actually had a ton of fun on the playset this trip. I'm still so impressed with this video of Merrick, taking the slide in three bounces with no hands.
Here's Annie swinging away.
And Merrick gaining more climbing skills which will greatly enhance his capacity for trouble.
The boat was also a favorite thing to play on. It didn't get out on the water this summer, but it was definitely loved and went on imaginary voyages.
In the mornings Grandma Paula would enlist helpers for weeding in the garden.
She plants sunflowers because they are so happy, but when they bloom it also is a sad thing, because it means summer is almost over and she'll have to go back to school.
Here's a fun squash from the garden.
Here are Annie and Merrick keeping each other safe in the night.
And Merrick sleeping in so late, late, late. He actually got a lot better at going to bed when told this trip. I suspect because his favorite Daddy wasn't around to hang out with at night.
Here is Vivien practicing.
And here she is getting ready to pray with Papa Mark.
He helped her put together a news report one day.
Rachel and Will came over for dinner one night. It was delightful to meet baby Faye, and we got to hear Rachel and Will sing!
And here is sweet Grandma Paula with Baby Max.
Did I ever mention how much I like to tease Melanie?
It's so fun.
Here are those big kids in a bath.
Here are Annie's mosquito-bitten toes.
We ate lunch at the Developmental Center a time or two out on the patio, and I took the car in to Greenwood Auto to get it cleared for a long drive one of the days. The Forbes name is well known there! And then our trip started drawing to a close (which means I am almost done blogging!!).
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