Family Reunion at Mount Pleasant

  
It was a Taylor year for the family reunion.  Aunt Lucy's family were in charge.  They own some property down in Mount Pleasant and were able to use the group site for the reunion.  We have the Taylor reunion every two years.  This is my grandmother's family.  She had eight siblings in her family, so there are a lot of people who come.  It isn't as many as it could be because not everybody comes.  It seems like it is often the same people who do come though.  I enjoy the reunions, because I get to connect with some of my favorite people.  It is sad though to see some of  older family members aging and getting frail.  My grandma came, but my grandpa didn't make it.  He just wanted to stay at home.  There were also a lot of younger people that I had no idea who they are.  You figure though that this reunion has my grandparents and siblings as the first generation, my mom and her cousins as the second, Me as third generation, my kids the fourth generation, and a couple of the families are close to a fifth generation. Not many people know their second cousins the way we do.  My niece became best friends with a girl who is her third cousin.  How cool is that. 

The reunion was supposed to be what my sister was waiting for to move.  Her original plan was to stay for the reunion and then more the Monday after.  My nephew Paul ended up having to have surgery (I will do a post about that soon.)   The surgery was Monday and the Reunion started Wednesday, but they said we could come up any time.  My mom ended up spending most of Monday with my sister up at Primary Children's Hospital, so nothing got packed.  The plan was to leave Tuesday afternoon.  That became Wednesday early, which ended up being Wednesday Afternoon.  I was driving separately and so was doing my own thing.  I was always planning on leaving Wednesday morning.  It still took me longer to get ready than planned as well.  It ended  up that we were both ready to pull onto the freeway at about the same time.  I had to wait a couple of minutes.  After getting on the freeway, my parents almost immediately pulled over.  Turned out they had a flat tire on their trailer.  They had to put on the spare, then stop at a Big-O to get it fixed.  I didn't wait for them.  I ended up getting there about an hour and a half before them, but I still missed the group lunch.   My biggest complaint about the reunion was that there were several things planned for the first day, that we missed out on because we weren't there first thing in the morning.  I thought the first day was mostly just going to be setting up and visiting.  We did have fun though once we got there and got everything set up.  We did spend the majority of our time sitting around visiting.   Thomas came up thursday night.  It was nice that he could come at least part of the time.  

Friday Morning they went into town for some horseback riding. Thomas took his camera.  Isabelle was not afraid of the horse at all and had a great time riding.

Grandma got to ride as well.  She took the horse for a gallop.  

Friday evening we made s'mores over my cousin Aubry's camp stove.   Saturday we just packed up and went home.   It was a lot of fun. Although Isabelle said she didn't have any fun.  She wanted to go "mountain camping."   A big field was not her idea of camping.  Also, I think there were too many people for the kids.  They were both a little cranky.    I was a little irritated that I forgot my camera.  Thomas didn't take very many people pictures  (expect the 50 pictures of the horse ride.)    I will need to get my mom's pictures.  Maybe I will post some of those when I get them. 

 

A Tea Party

Isabelle has been asking for months to celebrate her birthday with a tea party. We started working on it, but I didn't get the invitations out.  Things were very busy with the end of school.  I decided it would be better to wait until after school got out.  She has mostly played with her cousin who lived up the street, but sadly they have moved and will soon be on the other side of the country.  Especially with kindergarten starting in the fall, I thought it was important for her to make stronger connections with some of the neighborhood kids.  Unfortunately several ended up being out of town and one was sick.  We only ended up with one of the neighbors and the rest cousins.  They still had a lot of fun though.


The preparations began in the morning we cleaned the house and made sure everything was ready.  We made sugar cookies for them to decorate.   The dough was not cooperating.  we would cut out the cookies, but they would mush when we tried to transfer them to the trays.  Finally I rolled the dough out on the trays so we didn't have to transfer them.  It worked out well.  I don't have a tea set, and I thought about buying one. Then I had the thought that I had all those snake trays we had inherited.  What is the point if they just sit in the basement?  The neighbor girl was amazed that I was letting them use glassware.  My two nieces (the ones who were moving) came over early and the older one helped my cut up fruit and wash the trays. 

 

Finally everything was reading and all we needed were guests.  I was a little worried when it was ten after and no one had shown up.  I knew ahead of time that not everyone was coming, but there were a few I hadn't heard from.  As they showed up they went down into the family room where they danced to music from The Little Mermaid.  When everyone had arrived we returned to the kitchen where they picked out flowers to make hair bows similar to the one I made a few weeks ago.  While I glued the bows, the girls colored princess pictures. 

We then played games, which I found on a birthday party website.  We played "Kiss the Frog."  I had made a poster of a frog and while blindfolded they placed their kiss (a sticker) on the frog.  They thought it was a lot of fun.  Next we played "Find the Pea."  I had pillows placed in a circle.  Under one was a pea (a golf ball.)  A "real princess" would know they were on the "pea." This was repeated several times.  Also lots of fun.

 

After the games we returned to the kitchen for the tea party.   They decorated their cookies and had grapes, cantaloupe and punch.  Then we got out the cake and sang happy birthday.  Everyone enjoyed the snacks.

The cake was made by my friend Liz.  She  recently started decorating cakes and has done some pretty fun things.  Check out her blog here.

After they were done eating everyone was given a bracelet and a bubble wand, which they went outside to play with until parents arrived.  I thought that it went fairly well.  Especailly since this was my first time hosting a friend party.  I think that I enjoy hosting, but I always get really stressed out.  I also don't get into the whole decorating thing.  I don't think that the kids minded though.

Hawaii Update

It is funny the way things work out sometimes.  I think that I mentioned in my last post about how I had been trying to post about Hawaii for a long time, it was posted five months after we went.  I also mentioned that the biggest negative impact on the trip was losing my dad's GPS,which was not the start, but the big drop off for my emotional roller-coaster, which I couldn't get off of.  I think that the trip would have been much better if that hadn't happened.   Thomas and I both prayed that it would show up and that we would find it, but it never turned up.  We spent several hours of our very short trip looking for it.  We both felt like the answer we got to our prays was not to worry about it.  What kind of an answer is that?  Obviously I couldn't just let it go.  Even after we returned and we bought my dad a new one, I stressed and fretted about it and what had happened to it.  Five months later, I finally get my post written and posted.  That night I am watching television when Thomas walks in.  He has a funny look on his face and something hidden behind his back.  He pulls it out and I just stare at him.  I don't know what it is; then it hits me.  It is the missing GPS.  I had never truly felt like it was stolen because we still had the mount and the cable.  If I was a thief I would take the whole thing.  We had looked everywhere though.  We search the rental car multiple times.  We search Thomas' camera bag.  It wasn't anywhere.  I still had unrealistic hopes that it might show up. I expected a package in the mail, or a call from the temple.  Where was it I ask?  He shrugs his shoulders and says "In my bag."  He was looking for batteries, and there it was.  He had apparently put it in upside down, so it blended in with the bag, and then it slid so that it was underneath multiple dividers.  I still don't understand it.  I remember taking everything out of the bag and having it lying all over the hotel bed. How could we not find it in an empty bag?  Why were we not directed to it when we prayed if it was right there!  It bugs me a little bit, but I think that mostly I have moved on. Maybe there was a reason, even if I can't see it.  The plus side is that we now have our own GPS.  (Although the activities we would have done instead of searching would have been cheaper.)