Blood Flower

No, we're not putting shaving gel on your tongue.


Title from Tilly and the Wall

I just got back from the Newell (Leslie's mom's family) family reunion several hours ago in East Canyon. I'm usually not super crazy about going to East Canyon (running resorts like an HOA just doesn't work kids), but it wasn't that bad this time around. I don't know if it was having a kid that can actually participate in activities, the new availability of wireless Internet or the fact that we slept in Park City in a condo but I actually enjoyed it. I still don't like the place but the mix of people and food made be look past East Canyon's foibles (I'm really trying to be nice here but apparently it's not working).

Before I get too much into the reunion, the day before leaving we decided to let the kitties out of the garage. We had originally put them in the garage for like a day and then moved them to the downstairs bathroom. After a few days of that (and several instances of brave kittens wandering upstairs when I let them out so Gavin and I could play with them in the open), Leslie reminded me that she had signed up for outside cats, not inside cats. I agreed, but I was still afraid of letting these little guys outside. What if a skunk, raccoon or some other nocturnal animal beat up or killed them? I could appreciate her argument however and I thought the cats were getting bored so they were moved to the garage.

After a few days of fearing that we'd run them over when pulling into the garage, we pondered what we should do. The thing that was holding us back was the back fence has a bunch of holes below it where mice have burrowed and we were worried the kittens would run out and not be able to get back in. We got some mink wire from Leslie's dad to patch the holes but then I realized that pretty much the whole length of the fence was too high and I'd have to do this along the whole back fence. I figured that there was no point in installing it everywhere, trying to prevent the inevitable (laziness might have played a factor as well) and moved the kittens to the back yard. They survived one night so what's a night of us going away? I worried while we were away but when we came back, they were right there safe and sound, anxious to see me home (not for Gavin yet unfortunately... he's still learning how to make them not hate him).


Eat it Gavin! Eat it like your ride back home depends on it!


As Leslie would put it, "that's enough about cats." The reunion had some fun activities for Gavin. He made a bug jar, a nifty hat and a bookmark for mom. As you can see above (click for more pics of the event) we also entered him into the watermelon eating contest. The poor kid didn't ask to be entered, we just sort of threw him in there. But he was a good sport about the whole thing. I got him pumped up by having him make manly grunty noises and such. I don't know if he knew what was going on or not but once they said "start" he had 3-5 people yelling for him to eat that melon really, really fast. He didn't win (0-11 year old boys) but I was surprised by how much he put away. I really wish I had a video of the contest, it was just too funny to see him snorting it down as fast as his little 3-year-old mouth could go!

There were other activities such as the horseshoe throwing contest which I did a horrible job of (at least we were beaten by the winning team... sounds better on paper anyway). There was the raffle or lottery or whatever people were calling it where people bid on items (that sounds more like an auction though it's not an auction either... if there are enough comments about it I'll explain how it worked) as well. Leslie bid on a bunch of stuff and since she bid on stuff not many people wanted, we sort of made out like bandits. Gavin got a marshmallow gun, a cheap lightsabery-type sword and some candy, Parker got some burp rags, bibs and a toy phone. I just sat back and watched the spectacle.

Like I mentioned before, we stayed in Park City at some place and went back to East Canyon for some swimming and cousin time the next day. That was interesting enough but I think everyone just wanted to rest until it was time to go home.

Family reunions can be fun and all but since I'm a total home-body, I'm glad when I get home. I know Gavin really enjoyed himself and even Parker got in on some of the action. It seemed like such a long weekend yet here I am getting ready for bed and another fun-filled week of work and sorting out this house. You never know, I may have another post sooner than you think.

Pretending We're Rich - Family Reunion @ Heber

It's been a while since I wrote last and one of the reasons was the family reunion July 16-19. I don't know if I can call it a family reunion yet or not as I still have a sibling living at home but we're a family, we got together and it's been a while since we've all been together at once.

My mom and dad rented out this cabin over by Heber in this area called Timberlakes Estates or something like that. It's surprisingly close to Heber itself yet you feel far away from anything. This is in no small part attributed to the long dirt road you eventually run into halfway up the mountain. I'm usually leary about places at the end of dirt roads but this place didn't match that stereotype.


Deck with a view of the hottub, hooray for hotubs!


When we first arrived I was impressed by how big the place was. The master bedroom was on the main floor and had a master bath with a jetted tub. There were two rooms upstairs that each had a queen-size bed as well as a twin. There were two more bedrooms in the basement that had a similar setup except one of them had this funky bunkbed where the bottom was a queen and I think the top was a full... not sure. The kitchen was huge with an island, large table and state-of-the-art appliances. Upstairs didn't have much going on except a near empty living room with a 32-inch TV and a couch but downstairs had a huge HDTV, couches and a pool table. Just outside the main floor there was a huge deck that had a hottub.

My parents, Holly, Angela & I were the first to get up there (spouses included) so we got dibs on rooms. Me and Angela chose upstairs but Holly sort of wasn't allowed to have a room so Angela pushed out the extra bed into the living room so I don't think she minded too much. Blaise and Michelle showed up later (sans Jaysen) and we had dinner.

I'll be honest, for the first two days we did a lot of nothing. For some people that's a bad thing but for me, if I'm on vacation, I'm there to do nothing. I didn't sit around and pick my nose though, Holly brought her Guitar Hero III game setup, Blaise and I brought our laptops for some Warcraft III LANnage and of course there's the hottub and all that. I can't speak for Leslie but I'm pretty sure Gavin was just loving life. Our home is pretty small with a tiny backyard so he loved being able to wander around the deck and watch all the different people doing different things and that kid loves watching people more than doing things himself.


I am, therefore I game. Me and Holly playing Warcraft III DotA maps. She wasn't half bad actually.


The hottub was pretty nice except if water kept splashing out on the one side where the controls were, it would trip the breaker and then no more bubbles. We didn't figure this out until the 2nd day there. It's not all bad except that breaker also happened to control the central air so it was a bit hot that first night.

Michelle had to work part of Friday but when she came back she brought Jaysen with her. That night we did psuedo-family pictures since it's hard to get everyone together but we didn't hire anyone to do them. I haven't personally seen the resulting pictures but I at least got some fun pics taken with my camera in our picture taking clothes. We also had this talent show thingy that my mom wanted us to prepare for before we arrived. Leslie wasn't sure at first and I was so rusty on my guitar we almost didn't do anything but mom said to just tell a joke or something. We took her advice and found a few jokes. Leslie told one I had in my work emails and I remembered one I had heard before and found again.


One of these days Gavin is going to think this pose is normal for picture taking.


The best part of the talent show was when my dad was doing his "pushing invisible needles into his hands" and "swallowing his eyeballs" tricks (you'll have to ask about those later, I can do the first but the 2nd is totally my dad's). Poor Gavin wasn't quite sure about what grandpa was doing to his hand. In the middle of his act Gavin asks us, "Grandpa hurt?" and then when he did the eyeball thing, he turned away and started crying. We're all horrible people apparantly coz we just laughed and tried to help him realize grandpa's eyes were still there. I'm still not sure he understood the reality of that trick... might need to ask dad how he does that.


Grandpa can suck in his eyeballs!



Gavin doesn't think it's that great of a trick. Give it a few more years son, you'll like it.


I won't bore you with the details of my gaming exploits while we were there or the drive home but I really enjoyed myself. I'm not sure how long our family could get away with renting one place and cramming all of us in there but for a family our size, crazy fun.