Last week my extended family had a reunion up at Bear Lake.  We rented the same large house that we have rented two times before and gathered for activities, meals, and lots of conversation.  We had a fun time and I hope everyone enjoyed it. Monday night was Family Night where we sang a few songs and then played a few games related to family history. Tuesday was the Undokai.  My SIL has Japanese ancestry and Undokai is the name she uses for a bunch of team relay races.  In the afternoon, I worked on dinner (salads and pulled pork sandwiches) and Scott helped drive an expedition to a small lake with a rope swing which my teenagers enjoyed.  Unfortunately my son accidentally left behind a shoe, now lost forever.  That evening, we had a talent show. Later Scott built a fire and helped the kids make s'mores which was very popular. This is my SIL, organizing the Undokai. This relay was run up the field with your teammates serving as obstacles.

In 2011, we had 11 members of our family.  Then David got married in 2012 and they had a baby in 2013, so we had 12 and 13 members in those respective years.  In 2014, we fell behind with nobody new.  In 2015, Jan got married; in 2016, another grandchild was born.  Finally, in 2017 we added two new members with Garrett and Lincoln getting married so we had 17 members of our family.  Now in 2018, we have again kept pace with another grandchild being born (thanks, David and Stephanie, for protecting our stats!) Here he is, our latest cutie pie who weighed in at 9 lbs. 2 oz.: I get to go help in a few weeks and enjoy all my grandchildren!

Recently we celebrated Everett's 20th birthday.  Everett is our middle child--number 5 of 9--and claims he suffers from Middle Child Syndrome.  If by that, he means he works hard to get lots of attention, then yes, that would be true.  For the last 2 years, he has been far away, on the other side of the world, serving a mission in a poor country, formerly part of the Soviet bloc.  It has been super challenging but he has stuck with it and we get to see him in 39 days because he is coming home! Because it cost $85 to send him a pretty small package at Christmas and it took 7 weeks to get there (arriving the day AFTER Christmas), we opted for no package for his birthday and instead just sent a card with presents to be purchased when he gets home.  On his card we wrote 20 great things about Everett. 1.  Scott:  He has persisted in a very challenging mission. 2.  Camille:  He's funny! 3.  Paula:  He has mad cooking skills. 4.  Mindy:  He has very creative thinkin