Baby Blessing, Birthdays and a Wild Camping Trip

We ended the official reunion on Sunday afternoon with the beautiful baby blessing of our sweet Dean Haslam Eyre. Look at what a clean, clear spirit he has!

And a gorgeous mother who takes such great care of him!

And a dad who adores him and his terrific mom so much…

And a big sister who is still getting used to Dean taking over as the baby of the family. She kills us with the way she wears her moods on her face and with her pizzazy personality!

All these brothers were thrilled to be part of an incredible Father’s blessing:

And these kids couldn’t be happier to have a new cousin!

We always has two birthday while we’re together in July. One is our sensational son Eli. Julie always comes up with something clever to celebrate. The kids were especially excited about this one because as you can guess….they couldn’t wait to bash these piñatas open and scramble for the candy!

This year Isaac turned 14 and his mother, as always, made sure we had a full day of fun activities to celebrate. It’s especially nice to be with all his cousins each passing year!  We’re proud of this terrific young man!

Two of our sons work for a company called Imagine Learning and luckily they hold their semi-annual conference the week following the reunion. So Noah and Eli go to work (along with several of the other dads)  while the rest of us stay and play. Shawni has some amazing shots of our fun together during that week here.

I also get to do my Grammie Camps that week which I’ll document next.

At the end of that week this year, Noah and Eli picked up Josh in SL in Noah’s fun Sprinter and came back to the lake where they were joined by Tal, Eli and Dad as well as our cousin Ben and they took the boys that were available and drove about 10 hours to Oregon where our family built a lot cabin about 30 years ago.

That’s another story but suffice it to say that it was so fun for the older guys to remember the fun time we had building that cabin two different summers when our oldest kids were teenagers and the youngest was Eli was two when we started. The cabin is about to fall over after all those heavy winters and and has become a magnificent palace for the groundhogs. They still reside there and anyone who visits the cabin just bring tents and sleeping bags and sleep in the magnificent forest of the Blue Mountains.

It is a wonderland for kids and the big guys had a fabulous time remembering our adventure all those years ago and building another tree house. Tal and crew built the first one last year. This year they created slack lines for the kids to play on. Sadly, I don’t have many pictures but here is what I have:

 

I’m happy to have this documented. Pictures bring back so many precious memories!

More Reunion and July 2016

The Eyrealm reunion this year was planned and executed by Charity and Ian. Considering that they were still probably reeling from their around the world trip, they did an incredible job! We had SO much fun! For a terrific synopsis of how things unfolded, Shawni has done a perfect job of capturing each of the major events and hoopla here.

So instead of replaying all the fun in the order that I happened  I have the luxury of posting my favorite pictures and events from our time together. I am lucky enough to have been able to download pictures collected by Saydi from her camera as well as from Eli and Shawni  (sadly Kristi’s memory card crashed while downloading hers and Josh and Saren left before we got a chance to collect their photos. Since the pics were all mixed together I have no idea who to thank individually for capturing all the fun and beauty of our days together so here’s a big blanket thanks for your gifted eyes!

First I have to say that my hard-working mom and dad who were both raised on farms and knew the importance of hard work would have loved this activity initiated by Ian and Charity for the first time this year. They decided that since everyone enjoys the facilities at Bear Lake we would start the reunion off with a couple of hours of 36 people working hard to fix and maintain the outdoor furniture and control the weeds (among other things). You will see the weed and maintenance projects at the main complex on Shawni’s blog but this was our little crew up at the Lighthouse. Josh had just left but here are the girls and some adults oiling deck furniture after finishing weeding the eight flower beds that surround the house. All I have to say is “HOORAY FOR WORK!”

A few years ago as the grandkids have gotten older, we have realized that a contest to see who can work best in teams with a reward of a all-you-can-eat trip to a hamburger place on the lake worked like a charm to get the massive amount of dishes cleared and done after each meal. Tal was in charge of the work detail and the rewards and he made it work like a charm!

We had adult helpers too when the dishwasher overflowed and filled the kitchen floor. Thank goodness for these great mechanical minds! Still, after it happened the 3rd time, we called in the professionals who figured out what they couldn’t have known and it’s worked like a charm ever since.  

For some reason, one of the goals the past few years for everyone was to prevent me from working. Last year Eli bought professional grade handcuffs and cuffed me to a chair so I couldn’t get up to get somebody something during dinner. So I just had to just watch everyone working.

This year they come up with a novel idea to do the same thing with a nice after-effect. There was a sign up sheet for the kids to give their Grammie foot rubs after dinner so that I couldn’t move. I tell you what….those little kids were better than I’ve very received at a salon! It was heavenly!  Lyla went ahead and filled in that last blank so she did double duty!  Cute enough?

They must have had a secret meeting about this because every time I attempted to help with the dishes at any meal, some kid grabbed the dish I had in my hand and demanded that I leave! Pretty nice!

The weather this year was simply spectacular. Although we had some beautiful sunny days on the beach, we also had more rain and squalls and fog and mist, cool days and actual weather than I can every remember.

 

 

There are just moments that I can’t resist posting. They conjure up such great memories! Even though the reunion is officially only 3 1/2 days, family members and friends and extended family came and went for 3 1/2 weeks. Here are some of my absolute favs of the kids (thanks to our fabulous photographers)!

The most fun for me was just watching the kids cute personalities and their interactions with each other as well as the adults! This child rarely wore anything other than this beloved dress-up. I think she even slept in it!  Love it!

 

 

 

 

 

We had endless fun in, by and around the water:

 

 

Well I think that’s about as much as my computer will let me post in one sitting. You are probably glad to hear that if you’ve made it this far. For family history’s sake though the next few posts will be about our July birthdays, a baby blessing, crowds having fun, the Fear Factor, foodies and of course, Grammie Camps. More than you  probably want to know but I’ve got to do it before my memory fades into oblivion!