Los Barones at Syndermill

The big family reunion! 43 of us hanging out at the Snydermill Lodge (right by Olympic Park in Park City). We all met up on Saturday, June 1st and kicked things off with a huge family portrait by Busath. For 2 pm pictures the children were amazingly well behaved. A little candid preview:

 

Next on our itinerary was a swimming adventure at the local jr. high aquatics center. It was so much fun! First of all the water in the little kids pool was super warm, there was a great shallow section for Luke to wander around in, and most of all, we had the place rented out all to ourselves! Big hit and great way to get playing after lots of smiling and sitting still. 

 

We had 3 days and 3 nights together and we had a ton to fit in. Each couple was in charge of a family craft or activity and then Nanny had tons of great things planned too like Bingo (with sweet prizes!), a pinata, fishing pond, and toy scramble (everyone brought old toys our kids had outgrown or didn't like anymore and then we all dumped them out at once and kids gathered up "new" things to take home. My kids loved that activity! I think a lot of these things are what Joseph and his fam did at family reunions when they were growing up so it was cool to revive the traditions).

Our family activity was a photo booth set-up with cool backdrops and silly props. I loved how much the teenagers adored this activity. We have the coolest nieces! I have like a million photos from the photobooth but here's a little preview:

 

Bob's darling girlfriend (who is officially now his fiancee!) made a huge effort to come out and join us and meet the whole fam, and she made the best impression. My Caroline, along with Sisi, Gracie and Tillie were completely obsessed with Mary—and she was just the cutest with all of them. Bob was so sweet and patient to share his girl too :)

We fit in some fun game time late at night with the grown-ups, bike rides and trail runs, and lots of playtime on the playgrounds (one was right by the lodge with a sandbox and another was down the road by the pavilion and big grassy meadow.

  

Mary and Seth's darling craft—we glued figurines to jar lids and then spray painted them. Love how they turned out!

Livs and Luke taking their sweet time on the nature scavenger hunt Krista organized for the kiddos. I loved wandering the woods with these two and investigating every little thing. Of course my big kids had run off with cousins way ahead of us and finished the hunt as fast as they could. Love my curious little ones :)

 Let me explain my Bentley dressed up for skit night—he was so funny in that get-up and loved being silly in it. The LeBs are so fun—we separated into 4 groups and had 10 mins to make-up a skit based off of the props in our bag. Everyone participated and made up cute stuff but Bentley and Joseph's group was my fave. They all shared that curly wig to be Ruth Ann in different phases of life. Maddie interviewed Joseph dressed in an apron, headphones and that wig as Nanny recounting scenes from her new book "Memoirs I Mostly Remember." Bean was Nanny galavanting around Europe with Neil (Gunner)

We also had really good Sunday meetings—Joseph and I taught the teens in a Sunday School class while the others wrangled all the kids for primary sharing and music time. Then Ruth Ann and Neil gathered us all together for their talks and sharing their sweet testimonies. The pair of them are waiting on their mission call and very eager to get out and serve the Lord.

Oh how we love this huge, amazing, wonderful family! Luckily we'll be getting together again soon for a wedding!!!

A few more random pics:

 Maddie and I were twins in the family pic

 These guys love being ugly, enough said

 My darling boys were loving it up in the mountains. 

Beans even had a big basketball court to play on. Heaven. 

Love that little Lukey arm over Bentley's knee in the pic below:

Brothers heading out for a bike ride. 

Makes me happy that they love each other and are such great friends.