Penrod Reunion

July 12, 2014 was the Penrod Family Reunion in Showlow, Arizona.  The reunion was for the descendants Bamps (Flauris) and Nana (Grace) Penrod.  Grandma Great (Velma) is the oldest living descendant, and I'm proud to call her Grandma Great.  Even more special, the reunion took place on Grandma's 86th birthday.  It was really special.  I enjoyed visiting with family I already knew and meeting so many that I had never met before.  (This is the first Penrod Reunion we have had since Brandon and I were married almost 11 years ago.)

   We drove up first thing in the morning and made it there just in time for lunch! After lunch, we had a family role call.  Velma's family was well represented, especially by the Gary Smithson clan.  All but one member of the 41 people in our family was able to make it.  (I don't know about you, but I think that's amazing).  Aaron was the only one that couldn't be there, and he was missed.

Then we sang happy birthday to Grandma!  Check out that giant cake that Ryan Smith made!

Here is a picture with Gary and Kathe with their 27 grand children.  Fun Fact, the oldest and youngest of the cousins are exactly 1 day shy of 17 years apart.

 And here is a picture of the 40 of the 41 of us that were able to make it.

 Following, the kids got to beat up a Minion pinata is honor of Grandma Great's Birthday.

 In addition to just catching up, we got to enjoy a little entertainment.  The kids played some rodeo games.  i had a blast watching them.  They did barrow races and foot races.  Some of them even acted like rodeo clowns (maybe that was just mine... hmmm...)

 We had such a great time at the Penrod reunion.  I hope there will be more family reunions like this in the future.

Some Cows (Day #4 of our Utah Trip)

At the family reunion, on Saturday, I was talking with my cousin, Jenny (she is a cousin's wife).  They live in Oak City, and I mentioned that I have never actually been to Oak City, but always thought it was large.  It wasn't until Brandon mentioned that it was, in fact, smaller than Kanosh that I realized how small it was.  She very sweetly invited us over for dinner for the following day.  We were happy to accept.

Matt and Jenny have a fun family! They live on the edge of Oak City. They have 6 kids, Sam, Will and Orem (who are twins), Libby, Katelyn, and Garrett (I'm guessing on the spelling.  Hopefully I didn't butcher any of them).  I was silly and didn't take any pictures of the group.  Not sure what I was thinking.  Their kids are a lot of fun.  The boys entertained us with their adventurous tales.  It was a fun time.

After dinner, they took us to their feed lot.  The kids got to see their horses and cows.  Apparently that white horse was in a rapper's music video.  That's pretty funny.

 The menfolk took the kids on a ride in some big machines.

 Back at their house, the kids got to see some more animals.  Melanie and Noelle helped Garrett feed his cows and pigs.  They also got to see some fish and rabbits.  I was told that somewhere, they also had a sheep.  I didn't get to see it, but I believe it.  Garrett (who is 7) told us he plans to teach one of the baby cows to lead and hitch it to a wagon for the Pioneer Day kid's parade.  I bet that will be a site.  He was such a fun kid.  He played with Oliver really nicely.  He has a whole miniature farm (it's huge) in his room, with cows and other animals.  It's complete with real oats and water.  Garrett really made me smile. 

 After all that fun, all the kids crashed in the car.  It really was a great day.

A huge thank you to Jenny and Matt for having us over.  When we asked the kids later what their favorite part of our trip to Utah was, the visit on Sunday was it!

Hello, George Family! (Day 3 of our Trip)

Saturday, July 5th, 2014, was the George Family Reunion.  This family reunion went back to my great grandparents, Olaf and Blanche George.  My Great Grandparents had 6 children, all of which are still alive, 5 of them were able to make it.  I was sad that my own grandfather, Ray, and my grandmother, Sharon, couldn't come, but it was nice to see everyone else.  The reunion was in Kanosh, Utah, the town that my great grandparents lived their whole married life and raised their children.  My Aunt Helen was in charge of the reunion this year and she did a great job putting together a fun time.

Lori, my cousin, took everyone on a historical tour of the town.  The kids loved it (Oliver went twice).

Fran (another cousin) set up water games.

Oliver made it a little hard for this team to win.  He kept refilling their front bucket.

We also played water duck duck goose, water kick ball, and a huge water fight.  You can't tell, but I'm taking these pictures soaked, thanks to my loving children.

See what I mean!?!

When the water from the buckets was gone, the kids improvised with the water fountain.

And then it rained... providing even more water.  As you can tell, we had a great time.

The reason it took so long for me to post this event is because I was waiting to get this picture.  This is a picture of my Aunts and Uncles...  As I mentioned before, I missed my own Grandparents.  Had they been able to come, they would have been in this picture as well.

From my family, only a small number of people were able to come.  My Uncle Mark and Aunt Jolene came with their two girls and my Uncle Fred and Aunt Tammy was able to bring their 4 children.  But even with that small group, we had fun visiting and representing the Ray George group.  It was a great reunion.  We all had such a great time.

My favorite bits are in pictures.  I got to watch my kids play with new cousins. I enjoyed catching up with "long lost" cousins, specifically my cousin, Jolynn, who I haven't really talked with in about 15 years.  She has two cute boys that Oliver enjoyed playing with.

Thank you, Aunt Helen, for putting together a great reunion.

Independence Day (Day 2 of our Trip)

Happy Independence Day!  We were so happy to celebrate such a wonderful holiday with our family in Fillmore.  We started the day with a parade.  The Parade experience is much different in a small town than it is in the city.  In the town, they throw candy...  LOTS of candy (and other things), and the kids can run into the street to get it!  And they did just that!  Here are some pictures from the parade.

My kids are waiting and ready!

 I thought this was clever.  This is Fillmore High School's student counsel.

 The Millard County Library made a fun Dr. Seuss float!  I love it!

 Some of my favorite men.

 This guy slept through all the tanks and fire truck noises.  It's amazing.

 Ready to run out and get more!

 About 3/4's of the way through, this little man was too tired to do any more candy gathering.  In the back ground you will also see my Uncle Brant and Aunt Ruth Ann.

 After the parade, we headed to the Historic Capital Building for the festival.  My kids had stayed up WAY too late the night before, so we didn't stay at the festival for too long, but we did enjoy the grass and the cooler weather.  Here are a few pictures I took showing off the red, white, and blue matching outfits my mother bought them.

 There they are!

 Brotherly Love.

After the festival, we headed back to the house and some of us took naps while the others played at the park.  Friday night, we headed back to Fillmore for an amazing fireworks display.  We laid out a blanket and watched from the softball fields.  It was the first time we have been able to do that (last year we watched from inside our car because of the rain.)  Preston slept through the entire thing.  Oliver was scared, so he rapped his head in his blanket and laid on my lap.  He too fell asleep.  The girls truly enjoyed the colors, though Melanie informed me later that it was the scariest thing she has done "in her whole life".  When asked later what their favorite part of the trip was, Noelle's response was the parade and the fireworks.  I think this was her favorite day.

Happy Independence Day!

Salt Lake City (Day 1 of our Utah Trip)

Last weekend we took a trip to Utah!  We loaded up the kids and the car and headed to Kanosh on Wednesday, the 2nd of July.  It was a long trip (12 hours start to finish), but the kids did amazing.  They had a few "hard" moments, but overall, they were great in the car.  We got to Kanosh, more particularly my Uncle Brant's house, at 11:00 pm.  The next morning we woke up, visited a bit, then loaded the kids BACK into the car and took them 2.5 hours to Salt Lake City.  They weren't as happy about this road trip, but still, I feel like they did okay.  We decided to go to the Church History Museum and to Temple Square.  I didn't take any pictures at Temple Square this time, but I did get some from the museum.

Here are the kids bunked up and ready for bed.

They are ready for a wagon trip!

A little exhibit that is like the baptismal fonts in the temples.  The girls have been fascinated by the baptismal font since we toured the Gilbert, Arizona temple.  It was fun for them to see this exhibit.

Upstairs at the museum, they have a really neat children's area.  Everything is hands on.  The girls put on some skirts and tried learning some new dance moves.  It was probably more entertaining for me then it was for them.

Oliver "grew" a garden.

Preston just chilled.

Those poor chickens didn't see Oliver coming.  He man handled them a bit more than they were ready for.  

They built a "Temple"

And went fishing.

Hey... Preston got to catch one too!

As I mentioned before, after the museum we headed to Temple Square.  The Salt Lake Temple is in the middle of some maintenance and was fenced off.  I have been told it will reopen in April, 2015.  The Sister Missionary that I visited with informed me that they had 99 weddings the last day the temple was open!  WOW!  We took the kids into the Visitor Center.  That was fun.  They have a neat display of the Salt Lake Temple that shows what some of the rooms look like inside.  While standing next to the exhibit, a tour of some Korean visitors came by.  A lady spotted me with Preston, and next thing I knew, Preston had a group of grandparent age people doting on him.  It was fun to share him with others, letting him bring joy into their day, even though we had no way to properly communicate with each other.  He just smiled at them from his stroller and they smiled back.

We ended our visit to Salt Lake with dinner then headed back to Kanosh.  When we got back, the kids enjoyed the rest of the day playing with their dad and just having fun.  It was a good day!