July 11-13, 2012

The William C. Mitchell Family Reunion...

William C. was the father of Laura who was the mother of "Bill" who is the father of Michael who is my father. Did ya get that? 

Yeah, it was so much fun to travel down to Parowan, UT for this reunion. My parents rented out a B&B for all our families to crash at. It was really nice too. (Smore's B&B, Parowan, UT) Anyways, Bob and his family came, as well as my Grandma and my Aunt Mille and Uncle Mike. The kids were so excited to play with their cousins. It was great, they played in the treehouse room, the girls got to be little mothers- yep they played house- and those boys were in heaven. Little Josiah attached himself to Savana and didn't leave her side. 

We sure did miss my sister and her family, it just wasn't complete without her- but we decided to have some fun anyways! Here are Grandma and Grandpa Gardner with all but 3 of their grandkids! Yes, mine are the crazy ones.

Saturday we went to the park for the reunion. We got lots of compliments on our shirts, even had a few pictures taken!!! After we lunched and played we Grandpa wanted to take the grandkids to where he used to play at the cabin. There is another cabin there now, but there are still names carved into the trees. It's really neat. Being so high up in the mountains, it was chilly. The poor kids from AZ didn't have any jackets so my kidlets were kind enough to share.

This picture is on the land that the cabin used to sit on. We walked all around this area. There was a BIG ROCK that my dad used to play on as a kid- Timothy is re-enacting what I'm sure my dad looked like!!

Then we went down to the stream and the kids took off their shoes and waded in- it looked cold, and from their reactions it was cold. They were all pretty brave- except for Siera who had to excuse herself:)

After the visit to the cabin site, Dad wanted to take us UP the mountain. It was very high, over 10,000 ft. This is Cedar Breaks. It is breathtaking to be that high and see for miles. I love the color variations in the rock. The kids kept complaining that I needed to take their picture everywhere, I just told them that one day this will prove that they have been there! So, then of course I had to make sure to get my picture taken there too. So did Bob and Jasmine with the boys, and my Grandma and Dad.

We thought Cedar Breaks was high, but then we just kept going up, we went until literally we couldn't go anymore because we were on top of a mountain- BRIAN HEAD! (Over 11,000 ft) We thought it was cold down below- we were wrong. This was way cold!! But oh, the view. Each child did a little pose at the edge of the world and then they were back in the truck. Grandma stayed in the truck- she said she's seen it before:) Even the rock chucks came out to play.

On Sunday we went to church in Parowan, then headed to Cedar City where my grandpa is buried. He died   2 years ago. This is the first we've all seen his headstone. It is quite a trip. This was really neat for me because there is a lot of family buried in that cemetery. I got to really learn a lot. We had grandma pose with by the headstone, she thought it was really funny. She even thought about laying down for the picture, but that's just a little too weird! It was good for her to be there and to see grandpa one more time. It was another good lesson on respect for the kids, and even some conversation about death and life after death. 

This was such an amazing trip- it was short and we did a lot, but it was definitely well worth the effort to go down and be with family.