Summer Catch-Up: Chipington Reunion 2018

I still have a lot of stuff to catch up on from the summer....

My family had their first ever reunion three years ago. We call it the Chipington family reunion because my parents' last name is Chipman and the rest of us have or have had the last name of Derington. My sister Becky planned the reunion last time and I volunteered to plan it this year. Last time we had it in Moab. I wanted to stay a little closer to home and I found a great, large cabin in Heber so I planned it for there, with our day trip in Park City.

It takes a lot of work to plan a reunion for 45 people. My sister created the perfect model for our family with her reunion and I followed it for mine. Each of us are responsible for one meal and one activity. That way no one person has to do everything.

Since we only have our reunions every three years, we kind of go all-out. I was able to find an amazing, huge cabin in Heber that gave every family their own room. We even had a couple extra rooms, so my aunt and uncle and cousin on the Derington side came too! They live in California and my cousin lives in Pennsylvania so we rarely get to see them.

The reunion started on a Friday back in July. Everyone showed up by 5pm and we all had dinner together. The cabin had a game room with foosball, ping pong, pool table and a little basketball thing. It also had a pool and hot tub outside and a theater room. The kids spent most of their time doing those things. The adults spent most of our time playing the various board games that we all brought. We stayed up really late snacking, playing games, and chatting.

 

The teenagers loved the hot tub.

Saturday was our day to go to Park City. John's assignment was a plan an activity in Park City so he and his wife planned a photo scavenger hunt down Main Street. We broke into teams and hunted for the items on the list.

We were a bit of a spectacle walking around Park City.

Afterwards we all got some ice cream and treats from the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory.

Other activities over the weekend included swimming

 

 

Soccer obstacle course planned by Mike

Lego car race planned by Jake and Becky

Water balloon fight planned by me

Individually made pillows planned by my mom

Anthon and I also celebrated our 11 year anniversary during the reunion. We commemorated it with this picture:

One thing that was heard over and over, every day, was Kal calling for his cousin "Sophia" at the top of his lungs. These two cuties loved hanging out together.

It was a great reunion full of fun activities and lots of bonding for my family.

MFAM Reunion 2017

I'm behind on my posts for summer activities (of course) so here's one from June:

Anthon's family has a reunion every year. They usually go camping somewhere for 2 nights and the whole family gets together for it. This year Anthon was too busy with work to be able to go to most of it so instead of getting there when it started on Wednesday, I drove up Little Cottonwood Canyon with the kids Thursday around 3pm. We set up our tent, played some games with the family and started eating dinner.

Anthon's sister Jessica was in charge this year and she always plans fun stuff and is really crafty. She organized a life-size Candy Land game. She put colored pieces of paper on the ground to make a path. All the cousins got a partner (a kid that could read with a kid that couldn't read) and one-by-one everyone walked along the path. On each piece of paper that was a question and the partners had to ask each other the question and find out the answer so they could get to know each other better. They were questions like, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" and "What is your favorite scripture story?" I had Sophie as my partner and it was really fun to ask her the questions and hear what her answers were. Some of her answers surprised me and were not what I expected. Of course I don't remember any of them now because I took too long to write about this, but it was a fun game. There were also Candy Land characters along the way. Jessica asked some members of the family to dress up like the actual Candy Land characters from the game. When the kids got to them, they got some candy. It was a lot of fun!

Anthon got there around 7pm. We hung out and did a talent show. Anthon's family does a talent show every year. It's mostly the kids that do things and they have a lot of fun.

 Anthon was able to spend the night, but got up at 5am and left before anyone else was awake. The rest of us got up, ate breakfast, had a family meeting and then went on a little hike to a waterfall.

I had to carry Sophie on my back for the hike, but luckily it was short so we made it. It was a fun reunion!

MFAM Reunion

Over the 24th of July, Anthon's family had their annual reunion.  First we got up early and drove to Salt Lake to watch the Days of '47 Parade.  Anthon's family had secured a great spot under the shade of some trees near the end of the parade route.  The kids had a lot of fun watching the parade and playing with their cousins.

After the parade we had some lunch and then hung out at Liberty Park for a while.  They have a cool water area that the kids loved.

Next we went to Red Butte Gardens with Anthon's family because it was free that day.  It was pretty and there was a splash pad that the kids enjoyed, but after a few hours we were ready to be done outside and get some dinner.

Photo bomb!

After the gardens we headed over to Grandma and Grandpa's house for some dinner and the traditional talent show.

Love this picture!  So precious!

Danielle and a couple of her cousins did a skit, Avery and her little cousins did a skit and Damon and Monson did a dance.  At the end, a bunch of people got up and danced.  It was fun.

Anthon and I had purchased our first ever aerial fireworks so we shot those off after the talent show.   They were really cool! We also passed out a bunch of poppers that all the kids enjoyed throwing at each other.

A few of us spent the night at Grandma's house that night.  Most of the kids slept outside in tents, which they loved.  It took a while to get everyone to sleep, but eventually it all worked out.

The next morning we cleaned up, ate, and drove to Brigham City for lunch, playing at the park, and the family meeting.

Bed head.

After that we drove a little further north to our final destination of the reunion, Crystal Hot Springs.  We were able to procure a sweet spot on a deck area with a picnic table and we set up our canopy so we could have some shade, which was really nice for those of us with little nursing babies who would not be spending a whole lot of time in the water.

We left the hot springs around 7pm and started driving the long almost 2 hour drive home.  All the kids fell asleep in the car and went straight to bed when we got home.  We were exhausted after 2 full days of fun with the family!