Devin and Kim: Strobel Reunion: Getting There

We had our Strobel reunion from June 26-29 at Zion Ponderosa Ranch in Southern Utah. It was a fantastic time, as usual, all made possible by my ever generous grandmother. This year was an extra something special, if we can call it that, because my cousin Sarah and I got to plan the whole reunion. It happened this way: One day, my grandma calls and says that she has seen a commercial on BYU tv, wherin there is a huge reunion location right in the middle of Provo that she thinks we should rent. Sarah and I were both living in Provo at the time, so she called us up to have a look at it. We both assured her that we had never seen such a thing in downtown Provo, but that we would do some research. We called her back with a list of possibilities. Did she mean Apsen Grove? No. Did she mean Heber? No. Did she mean somewhere else? No. She was certain that it was right in Provo. Anyway, we reassured her that we would find something and somewhere great to do the reunion, which led to....us getting to plan the whole thing!

This was no small feat. My dad's side of the family is huge. We finally got enough response from people to figure that we were planning for 60-70 people (about half the family). We found these amazing cabin homes in southern Utah and jumped on finding a weekend that would work to rent the biggest cabins they offered. We then planned for the next approximately six months to make it happen. Meals, cabin assignments, activity schedules, etc. etc. etc. The nice thing is that like I said, my Grandma is one of the most generous ladies you'll ever meet and she foots the bill for almost everything. She paid for the cabins, the food (although we assigned different people to prepare each meal), and the activities once down there. We basically just had to get ourselves there and back. What a woman! Totally worth the vacation if you ask me. I think this is our sixth reunion since Devin and I have been married and we really have been to some fantastic places. We have been to New York, Colorado, Nauvoo, Island Park, Heber Valley, and now Zion's. This is one of the only times each year that I see some of my Strobel family, so that makes it extra fun.

Anyway, the day before the reunion, a Wednesday, my Aunt Angela planned to take her kids to see the Manti pageant and asked if we wanted to come. We jumped right on that opportunity and had a great time at the pageant before heading down to Richfield to stay for the night. The night was made funnier and funnier as we continued to get lost on our way to the hotel, ending up in the middle of some farmland. We finally made our way to the hotel at about 1 am and the kids crashed. My aunt Janie decided to join us last minute with three of her kids, so we needed an extra room for her. The guy at the counter was some sweet Vietnamese guy with a thick accent, but he gave her the same rate we got (this was a divey hotel, just for the record) and she ended up with this huge suite that had two king beds, a pull out bed, and two more couches. We joked that we should have all just slept in with her.

The next morning we hit the road to make the rest of the drive to the cabins. I'll post more about those days later!

Before we headed to the pageant, we had some time to kill, so we hit up the new Bean Museum in Provo. Pretty awesome if I do say so myself! Can't beat free and it certainly entertained the kids!

I had Kenna and Karch in with me to help with the kids since Devin couldn't come down until Friday morning. Oh, I should mention the carseat fiasco too! The morning we were to head out of town I realized that I had left the carseats for my kids all in Devin's car and he was at work in Farmington (We hadn't moved at this point). Oh, I was so stressed. I thought I was going to have to go out and buy new carseats for all of them, but I went to lunch with my co-workers, and luckily my co-worker Lauren is a carseat nazi and has a whole extra set that she carts around with her...so she kindly loaned them to us and installed them and everything. She felt better about the safety of my children in their carseats because I know she has been concerned before...THANKS LAUREN. Totally saved the day.

The beautiful Manti Temple before the pageant started. Such an amazing setting.

We saw one of Flor's teachers here. He was quite a ways a way, but Flor kept looking over there and waving enthusiastically. It was cute. I had no idea who she was waving at (no one, I thought- she can be quite friendly to strangers), but he came over a while later and talked to us. He had noticed Flor waving at him! Cute that she recognizes people now.