Since Ryan and I got married we have been switching off Christmas’s between our families each year. When we all started having our own kids some of us wanted and/or thought it was easier to stay home for Christmas so a few years back my family decided to start having a biannual family reunion in the summer as our ‘Christmas’ get together. It is a little easier to travel in the summer, a less crazy time of year, and we all seem to be more summer activity people than winter. It has worked out pretty well I think. We get a VRBO cabin or home that is big enough for all of us and we all stay and play in it for the week. We have picked different locations each time too which is also very fun to travel and see new places.
The first year we did Castle Rock Colorado. It was a fun place. Tyler kept telling us there was a monster in his room one night and we kept telling him to go to bed, there was no monster. Then we found out there was a bat flying around in his room…basically a monster to a little kid. We then spent over an hour trying to eradicate the bat. I went on a hike with the Caziers and my kids and we almost got washed off the mountain in a flash rain storm. We also rode horses and did some target shooting.
Two years later we went to Orlando Florida. The house we stayed at had its own pool and a huge community pool with a lazy river. Matthew swam for seven hours one day and ended up getting swimmers ear. He said it was totally worth it though. We also went to Disney World, Sea World, and spent a day at the beach along with all the swimming.
The third reunion we picked Gatlinburg Tennessee. It was a unique place. The house we stayed at was not as big as advertised so we were a little cramped. We also ended up with about 50% of us getting a stomach bug so there was way to much throwing up going on. Emilee even dumped her puke bucket full of puke all over the van, that was fun to drive home in. We still squeezed in some fun though. We did a lot of sight seeing in Gatlinburg. We went on a helicopter ride. All of us played at the rec swimming pool, and some played racquetball. Some of us went to the Dolly Parton Country Stampede dinner show. The dinner of soup potatoes, a whole chicken, corn, and dessert was all served with no silverware. The kids thought it was great to eat everything with their hands. We also did hiking, zip lining, and white water rafting. Lots of fun new activities.
This year we ended up back in Colorado. This time we went a little more north to Oak Creek. It is pretty close to Steamboat Springs Colorado. The name of the cabin we stayed at was Maverick Hollow.
After last time we made sure we had a home with enough rooms and bathrooms for each family to have their own private area. We left Sunday morning from DeAnna’s house after my Grandpa’s birthday party the day before. The cabin was pretty remote. There were other cabins around but I didn’t really see anyone else while we were there. You couldn’t see any other homes from our cabin. We all arrived and got settled on Sunday by about six. We made a big breakfast dinner (kind of a tradition) to eat together that night. Pancakes, hash browns, eggs, and bacon. The cabin was 5900 square feet so there was lots of room. There was a big loft too that most of the older kids slept in each night. We finished the night off with a fire and smores.
Most of the days we started with a walk/hike around the cabin with anyone that wanted to go and explore a little. We did that on Monday. There were lots of beautiful wild flowers. We saw bear tracks, deer tracks, lots of chipmunks and ground hogs. We only got lost the first day too. After our hike and breakfast we played some games then everyone got ready to go to the Stagecoach Reservoir, about a 15 minute drive away. Matthew explained to me that he was excited to go to the reservoir and swim because usually they are man made so there is not any fish to worry about touching when you are swimming. I smiled and let him swim without fear of a slimy fish touching him. He also didn’t notice the “fishing areas” and “fishing license sold here” signs on the way to the swim area. We rented a paddle board, and the Caziers rented a canoe so we played on those and swam the afternoon away. After we got home, showered, and ate dinner, we had a Family Home Evening together. It is another tradition we have done each time. Grandma and Grandpa taught us a lesson about recognizing miracles in our lives and ways that Heavenly Father helps us daily. When the kids were put to bed that night the adults did a white elephant party. This is another tradition we do each time we get together. There is a nice blend of ridiculous, silly, and semi-usefulness with the gifts. Ryan and I found our gifts at the Limon Colorado gas station gift store. It was a gold mine.
Food shopping for the cabin 
Waking up from a nap on the way to the cabin. 
Coming into the Oak Creek area. 
Smores time! 
Flowers on our walk 
FHE Minute to Win it Game 
View from our room. 
Hiking. 
I used Matthew’s shirt as a hat…looks ridiculous but was effective. 
Hannah and Allison on the paddle board. 
Dad got a surprise re-gift from the previous year.Mom got a love your selfie cat mug. 
DeAnna got her big glasses and fancy suspenders. John got chocolate bacon and a cow pie frisbee. 
Matthew got popcorn and spam, Ryan got ugly teeth and funny glasses. I got a cherry pitter and a decorative basket. 
Kenny got a cat puzzle and twix, Sherri got a children’s book and toy.
Tuesday we went to Steamboat and tried out one of the Alpine slides. Everyone went down except my parents, my mom had fallen down the stairs the night before and hurt her knee. The first time I went down with Tyler. He was a little nervous at first but had a fun time once we got going. The second time I went down on my own and raced Matthew. We switched back and forth going down but he ended up winning by a smidge (a small smidge) at the end. After the slide we all ate lunch together at Qdoba. We ate at a Qdoba several times as we were traveling. It is now one of my favorite restaurants. Another great place we tried was Which Wich. One of the best sandwiches I have ever had. We wandered around Steamboat a little after lunch. We found a fun little stream to play in a little and cool our feet off. It was freezing cold but it felt wonderful. That night after dinner we all played games and hung out together. Ryan and John played a few of their more involved several hours long games. The rest of us played Bananas, Cobra Paw, Avalon, Bonanza, and a few other quicker games. We had smores again that night. My dad also heard something early that morning and when he looked out the window saw 5-6 deer just outside our cabin. He found a salt lick that someone had set out for them so every morning and evening the deer would come to get the salt lick. It was pretty awesome. We saw a lot of deer while we were there on walks, drives, and at our cabin. They were almost easy to find.
Playing Bananas. 
Deer coming for the salt lick 
Emi watching the deer. 
Sherri and I eating our smores and ignoring the deer. 
Matthew didn’t care about being wet in his clothes, the water felt to good. 
Cooling off in the stream. 
Driving back from one of the fun filled days in Colorado.
Wednesday the Caziers minus Hannah and Tyler, and my parents went on a hike. The rest of us went to Kremmling to go white water rafting. My mom was going to come with us but her knee was still hurting so she thought a hike would be better then bouncing around in a raft. It was about an hour and 10 minute drive. The first half was a dirt road with gorgeous views and steep drop offs. Two huge elk jumped across the road in front of Kenny and went straight down the almost sheer cliff on the other side. It was pretty cool to watch them. Once we got to Kremmling I went to check us in and found out we were not rafting that day. We were rafting the next day. Grrrr! It was pretty annoying. We decided to go back to Steamboat and go tubing down the river there. It was more driving but we were able to make it before they closed for the day. Kenny and Aubry didn’t go because they said Aubry was to little. We should have just brought her anyways though, it was not that bad. It was a lot faster than any other tubing adventure I had gone on. Tyler got stuck in a ‘washing machine’ which terrified him while he was in it but when Ryan bumped him out he thought it was pretty awesome. We did a little souvenir shopping after that. Matthew got giant bear paw slippers. Emilee got a backpack with a little peak hole for a fox, deer, bear, and moose to poke their heads out. Allison got a stuffed animal- a guinea pig, now named Snuggles. Ryan and I each got a t-shirt. That night we played more games and hung out at the cabin when everyone got home from their hike or long round about drive to go tubing instead of rafting.
Thursday the Caziers and my parents decided that they were going to the Hot Springs Pool in Steamboat. Hannah wanted to do that instead of try rafting again with us so she went with them. They had a great time. They had several different pools to swim in that ranged from a warm pool, to bath water, to nice and toasty. The Cazier’s are pretty thin people so I think the warm water helped them maintain their body heat better than a regular pool so they loved it and swam all day. There was also some fun slides. My dad had a fun time but prefers regular cold pool water to swim in instead of a hot springs. Our cabin was on a vault system so we had to be careful with our water usage so they all took advantage of a nice long shower at the pools too.
Allison woke up with a stomach bug early that morning so Ryan and her stayed home from rafting and the rest of us headed to Kremmling again. Since our numbers dropped from 10 to 7 we decided to switch cars around a bit so we could take one instead of two. My parents took Kenny’s car and we took their van. The weather was a little over cast that day so it was a little chilly but we still had a great time. We went down a stretch of the Colorado River with class II-III rapids. Our guide brought along a five gallon bucket and several water guns. He was very good at instigating water fights with other rafts and guides and getting us wet. Everyone had fun going down the rapids. After the first one Aubry decided to put her head down on the raft while we went through the rapids. She preferred the smoother parts of the river. She also had no problem yelling, “Stop it! I do not like that!” when people splashed her. Overall I think she had fun. A little past half way through the trip they stopped at a place called Jump Rock. If you were over 90 pounds you could jump off the 25 foot cliff. If you were under 90 pounds you could jump off a shorter 10 foot cliff. Matthew and Emilee both gave the shorter one a try. They said it was the coldest water they had ever been in. I wish we hadn’t had to drive over an hour to get their twice to go rafting but we had a fun time.
Bus ride to or from the river. 
Passing around water guns. Tyler loved squirting them. 
Climbing around a little at Jump Rock. 
Having fun together! 
Our guides name was Christian. He fit the profile of a river guide perfectly. 
Waiting to get in our raft. 
Emilee on ‘Little Jump Rock’ 
Matthew on ‘Little Jump Rock’ 
Emilee being the hood ornament for our raft. 
Aubry taking her position after seeing the next rapid coming. 
Heading over to jump.
On the drive home most of us dozed off while Kenny drove. About two minutes before we got home to our cabin a car passed us and stirred up some dust, as Kenny was driving through the dust a deer ran in front of him. He slammed on the brakes which locked them up and we started to slide/fishtail on the dirt road towards the edge. Sherri and I woke up when he hit the brakes in time to see the van heading off the road straight for a tree. Kenny turned the wheel and hit the gas to pull us out of the ditch before we slid completely off the road and to avoid hitting the tree straight on. The van turned enough that instead of hitting the tree it side swiped us and ripped off the side mirror and crunched the side of the car and shattered the back window that Matthew was sleeping on. This all happened in about three seconds. My first thought when I saw we were sliding was a prayer that we were not heading over a sheer cliff like most of the ride home was and if we were the trees would be strong enough to hold us. Once we settled and I realized we were still on the road and not seriously hurt we took stock of everyone. Sherri and I were fine, Kenny was shaken up a bit and in shock. Aubry was crying but not hurt. Matthew, Emilee and Tyler were all sitting in the back seat were the window had shattered so they had glass all over them. Tyler bit his lip and it was bleeding. Emilee was not hurt. Matthew was next to the window and probably hit his head on it. He had glass all over him head to toe. Luckily his eyes were closed (one of the first things he said was, “I think Heavenly Father made me fall asleep so my eyes didn’t get hurt.”) so none of the glass got in his eyes, he had a couple cuts on his forehead and elbow. The car still worked fine so once Kenny settled a little he drove the last two minutes to the cabin. When we got there Tyler and Aubry hopped out like nothing had happened. Emilee had to go shower to rinse all the glass off her. Matthew started to go into shock a little bit. He started to shake and cry. We helped him out and got him showered and fixed up and then he was already saying he had a cool story to tell his friends. It put a damper on our evening for sure. Kenny felt awful for the accident and the headache my parents now had to deal with since it was their rental car. We were all glad that everyone was safe and no one was hurt except the car. Being in an accident is scary, and if you are the driver it makes you feel even worse because you are responsible for everyone in the car. I told Kenny I was glad he was driving though because he stayed calm and new what to do to keep everyone as safe as possible. The van could have gone completely off the road, it could have rolled, it could have been a lot worse. We all said a prayer of thanks for our safety and I am sure there were many individual prayers said as well. My parents took the news pretty well. They were glad everyone was safe first off. My dad seemed to handle it well and said it would all work out when he saw the van. My mom looked like she switched from wanting to throw up, to wanting to cry several times before she processed it all.
After everyone was home and we settled down from the accident and had dinner and visited about the positive parts of our day, we decided to have one more fire and smores night. We took some group pictures too. We should have taken them the first day when we were clean and fresh but we went for a more natural, week in the woods look.
You can never have to many smores! 
Me and My Punkin! 
10 of 13 Grandkids. 
After a week in the woods we still look good! 
View from our other bedroom window. 
These two always find a place to play catch. 
The Jones Clan, minus John, Rachel, Kylie, and Aiden.
Friday was checkout day. My parents left first to get to the Denver airport early to turn in their now smashed passenger side van. Kenny and Sherri left next. Sherri and Aubry were flying on the same flight as my parents back to Florida. They got home about 11pm Friday. Kenny ended up driving their rental back because there was a mix up with the one way rental and they were going to charge them a ridiculous amount of money. He is extremely adverse to flying and usually finds one reason/excuse or another to not have to fly. Intentionally or not instead of flying, he drove from Colorado to Florida with only a brief stop to sleep for a few hours at our house. He got home at 4am Sunday morning. The Cazier’s left the same time we did. They got home about 7pm that night to Utah. We didn’t get home until almost 2 in the morning. Stopping to charge the Tesla adds a few hours. Allison was still sick on our way home so she was a trooper traveling 14 hours in a car with a stomach bug. Much to all of our delight after the first three hours she stopped throwing up and just wanted to sleep the rest of the time.
Emilee will create a little home for herself full of stuffed animals, anywhere she goes. 🙂 
Just told them we still have three hours to go.
Just like that we all go from being together in a remote Colorado cabin to being back to our homes in Utah, Florida and Kansas in a few short hours. (A few more hours for Kenny but crossing more than half the United States in less than 2 days is pretty crazy) It was a very nice week. I am already looking forward to the next reunion in two years, wherever it ends up being. I am glad that my family enjoys being together and we make the effort to see each other when we can since we live no where near each other. Hopefully next time John and Rachel will be able to make it and we will have everyone together.
