Reunions

Last month we went to Utah and Idaho for family reunions on both sides of our families. The first family reunion we went to was for Andy's side of the family and we ended up in Montpelier ID. Andy's aunt and uncle and several cousins live there. They were quite influential in building and running the Oregon/California Trail Center there. I was really impressed. I wasn't sure what to expect, but I can honestly say I was blown away.

The center has a tour where you can learn about how the pioneers lived and the challenges they faced. The tour ends up in a room with covered wagons circled around where we ate dinner. It was really well done. The food was great and the whole experience was really interesting. It was a lot of fun to get to know more of Andy's cousins.

One of the highlights of the evening was singing karaoke with everyone. Of course Andy did not disappoint. He not only sang the Macarena (with a large group of "fly girls") but he also danced to Billy Jean. Michael Jackson would have been so proud.

Later that week, we went to a family reunion on my side of the family in Elba, Idaho--near Oakley, Idaho. It's pretty impressive how many small Idaho towns we were able to visit for our reunions. We camped at the Twin Sisters campsite in Rock City. The irony is that there were 4 sets of twins there. One of my cousins brought his rock climbing gear and we were able to go rock climbing. I even went, much to the chagrin, of my dad who didn't want his grandchild dangling from a rope 100 feet up in the air. (This isn't the best angle, but at least it's from far away.)

My cousin had prepared a slide show of pictures of our relatives and places they lived. Not only was it interesting, but I was impressed that he was able to operate a computer, projector etc in the middle of nowhere using his car battery for power. Pretty slick. My great, great grandfather, Evan Davies Jones, died in Elba and as part of the reunion, we placed a headstone on his unmarked grave. We also drove in to Oakley, ID where a few more relatives lived and were buried.

This is my brother and his son who have carried on a family tradition of having the initials of A. G. S. as they are standing next to the headstone of my great grandfather, Adam Gibson Smith.

I wanted to include one other picture of my nieces and nephew. It was a little difficult to get them all to smile at the camera at the same time, but it was a lot easier to get them to make funny faces at the camera!!