July 24-26th, 2014 marked the first official Jenkins family reunion! We've had quasi-reunions in the past to celebrate a wedding or
honor GG's 100th birthday, but this was our first "real" reunion and boy was it a good one! Hats off to Tanna for planning and organizing the entire thing! She truly went above and beyond. The actual reunion was scheduled for Friday and Saturday, but many of us arrived a day or two earlier - we could hardly wait to get the party started!
Like I mentioned in my past post, Spencer's ancestors settled the Star Valley area when they immigrated from Wales in 1891. The home in Freedom was built by Spencer's great grandfather and then later renovated by his Grandpa's brother, who just a couple of years ago sold the home and property to Jeremy and Tanna. Freedom is such a cute little town- population of somewhere around 164. Jeremy and Tanna's property is amazing with so many things to see and explore - a prefect location for a family reunion!
We arrived on Wednesday, along with Corinne, Morgan and Bailey. Then the Terry's arrived on Thursday with Aunt Fay and Uncle Bob. Grandpa Al, Boppi, Jocelyn and Collin were the last to arrive on Friday afternoon (Michael was the only one who wasn't able to make it this reunion - and he was surely missed).
The house has 4 bedrooms, which a few of us with littles took advantage of, but everyone else slept outside in tents.
Well, almost everyone.... Jeremy & Tanna and Grandpa Al & Boppi just slept in sleeping bags under the stars. And Bo joined them for a snuggle once the sun came up!
 |
| I would have loved to sleep under the stars if I had a sleeping bag warm enough. While the days in Freedom were nice and warm, the nights would drop down into the 30's. So to be on the safe side I slept inside with Calvin while Spence camped outdoors with the girls. One night we switched it up and I stayed out with the girls but slept horribly. I was freezing and had to pee from 3am on, but didn't dare leave the warmer temps of my sleeping bag and tent. |
Of all the dozens of things to see and do, one of the main attractions for my girls was Aunt Tanna's huge bin of dress-up clothes! Once the girls discovered the dress-ups there was no going back! They wanted to dress like pioneers the entire weekend. It was pretty cute though and very appropriate for our surroundings.
Madi's favorite was the yellow dress and bonnet (you'll notice her wearing this dress in many of the pictures):
Elle's favorite was the green dress, cowboy hat, and boots.
We found Ashley the cutest little horse costume and the girls walked around in costume the entire morning on Friday:
Even the older cousins couldn't resist getting dressed up and posing for some western photos:
Bailey wanted nothing to do with the dress-up though:
That little tack shack was the coolest thing ever! Tanna had given us each a welcome bag when we arrived, filled with little things for us to use during the weekend. One of her ideas was packets of play money for the kids. They set up the tack and feed shop as a little "snack shop"/ convenient store for the kids to buy snacks during the day.
It was mostly popular at the end of the night just before the outdoor movie began. Sydney and Kaitlyn would pop popcorn and have all sorts of great movie treats to buy. It was awesome!
Movies were shown each night on the barn. It was coolest thing. One night I even let Elle stay up for part of the movie and snuggle me with a bag of popcorn. So much fun!
Aside from playing dress-up there was so much other stuff to do around the house . . .
Painting:
Bubbles:
Water and marshmallow guns (never did get a picture of the marshmallow war):
The trampoline is especially fun when you can jump off the side of the truck (and there's Madi again in her yellow dress). . .
Legos and Lincoln logs:
Shooting:
Play horses . . .
. . . and a real horse! Everyone lined up for a ride on "Red".
Lawn mower rides:
Motorcycles:
Floating the canal out back was also a big attraction with the older kids - unfortunately something I never got a picture of.
Friday afternoon we all loaded up and drove about 10 miles down the road to a lake to cool off in.
And oh that lake was cold!
But we all had such a great time!
Elle flipped over in her tube minutes after taking the picture below! She asked to sit up on it like Madi was, but then she couldn't keep her balance and flipped backwards!
Unfortunately Spencer and Jeremy missed the lake because they were out fishing all afternoon (still a sore subject). But brothers need their time.
Friday night was our first meal all together. We had dutch oven curry and the best berry cobbler for dessert! Tanna is a phenomenal chef and cooked every meal the entire weekend (like I said before - she went above and beyond)!
One thing in our welcome bag that helped to make meal time easier were these awesome mugs that Tanna got for each of us. Everyone had a hook for their mug which helped eliminate the mess of cups everywhere!
If for some reason you didn't want to bother with grabbing your mug, there was always another alternative to getting a drink! And oh how cold and yummy that WY water was!
Tanna and Jeremy really thought of everything in preparing for this reunion. They wanted to make all of our lives extra easy and realized it's sometimes a pain to have to head inside to use the bathroom, so a year or so ago Jeremy built an outhouse (totally not for the reunion, but hey it was definitely a perk)!
Calvin happened to be with me the first time I used the outhouse and he must have thought is was pretty cool because Friday afternoon, sometime after getting back from the lake and getting dinner ready, I couldn't find Calvin. I called and called for him and then started running around the property looking for him, when all of a sudden I hear this faint little voice calling for me. I rounded the corner and saw Cal, standing by the outhouse, pants down, diaper in his hand. I about died laughing right there. I grabbed his diaper, told him I'd be right back and to wait there. Then I ran to grab my camera!!
Very obediently he waited right by the outhouse door! I just had to get a couple pictures of this sweet little boy and his naked bum, eager to use the outhouse!
Saturday, the 26th, was our first full day all together in Freedom. And since it was probably my favorite day, I want to document it in full detail!
*BIG waffle/bacon/egg breakfast with everyone in the morning:
*Riding "Red" mid morning
*Time to relax and play / naps in the afternoon
*An invite to the private quarry just a mile down the road!
Cal was still napping and at the house with Aunt Joci, so Spencer and I got to enjoy being in the water with our girls!
It was such an awesome pond with the coolest paddle boats!
We all took turns riding on the two paddle boats, the canoe, and tubes!
A few brave souls even went off the diving board!
*We were able to squeeze in our family picture after the pond!
Parents and 5 siblings:
Boppi and Grandpa Al with all 14 grandkids:
I love the sweet cousins relationships my kids have been able to develop this summer. Calvin absolutely adores Eric and Eric is always willing to help with Calvin!
After family pictures we all piled into cars (a bunch of the kids opted for the back of the truck) and headed off to the cemetary to visit the grave of Spencer's Grandpa Jenkins - "Papa".
It was a sweet moment to gather the kids around his grave and tell them a little about their great-grandpa who we were sure was there smiling down upon us.
After the cemetery we headed off to the Freedom Day Celebration! This small little town of Freedom sure knows how to throw a party. It's a community event put on by the ward there in Freedom. First they start with dinner - a huge barbeque feast with homemade rootbeer.
After dinner, the kids gathered into different sections of the park according to age. The youngest group (7 and under) headed out to the baseball field where they each received a hard hat in preparation for the candy dropping!!
Every year at the Freedom celebration they have a plane that drops candy from the sky! It flys around the entire park dropping candy to all the different groups of kids. And the plane did this loop several times to ensure every child got plenty of candy dropped to them. Oh what fun it was to see candy falling from the sky and squealing kids in hard hats running around trying to grab as much as they could!
Cal stored his candy in his pocket!
After the candy dropping we noticed a line forming on the other end of the park with two four-wheelers each pulling a train of wagon cars! Naturally, all the cousins hopped in line. Elle was a little nervous at first but Madi was totally thrilled! The four-wheelers pulled the kids in a loop around the entire park! Then after their ride they went ahead and got in line again! Madi went in the train at least 6 times!
Such a blast! And what fun it was to have lots of cousins to ride with!
While Madi kept getting in line with Kaitlyn to ride the train, I hung out with the littles cousins who were having an absolute ball together!
Pretty sure Aunt Fay was having just as much fun as they were!
We all tried to keep ourselves entertained as best we could while waiting for it to get dark and the firework show to begin . . .
At one point while we were all messing around snapping silly pictures, one of the trains drives by and starts throwing out more candy! I don't care if you like candy or not, there's just something exhilarating about candy being throw from a moving vehicle! It was complete mayhem as we all scrambled to grab as much as we could. We must have given a pretty good reaction to the candy throwing because the guys on the 4-wheeler drove by a couple more times throwing fist fulls of candy to us!
Finally it was dark and time for the fireworks to begin! Since the fireworks were being shot off in the baseball field right next to us, we had an incredible show! The fireworks were right above our heads - so loud, bright, and HUGE! A little too scary for Calvin's liking though. He sat on my lap with the blanket over his face the entire time.
What an amazing night! Kids weren't in bed until after 11pm, but it was definitely the perfect party to end our reunion with! We loaded up the next morning, taking a break to attend sacrament meeting at 9am. After church, as we loaded up the last of our stuff, I saw Madi writing away at the table. I took a peek and had to take a picture of the sweet little (3 page!) thank you note she wrote:
Then we loaded up and said our good-byes. Check out that packed car we made this adventure in!
It was sad to leave this cute little town of Freedom especially with not knowing when we would be back. Hopefully our next visit isn't too many years away.
