First Annual JB Howell 2012 Reunion

We started our first annual family reunion by hiking up to Mary's lake. It was a perfect hike for us whimps and the scenery was gorgeous. The squirrels are extra friendly and wanted to help us eat our lunch up at the lake. After hiking back down we enjoyed slurpees and a visit with my Dad who had just gotten out of the hospital again. He gave us another huge scare by getting a massive blood clot in his lungs. We are so glad that he is a good energizer bunny and keeps on a going.

Saturday evening we invited some friends over to play our own version of the "Amazing Race". We broke up into teams and took off in cars to find places, accomplish mental and physical tasks and have a lot of fun. BreeAnn put it all together for us, which was no small feat, THANKS! Dallen and Devan's team came in first.

Sunday after church we headed up to Idaho to Lava Hot Springs. We stayed in a lovely pink house called the "Wayferer's Inn". Fortunately it was very clean and nice. The town was BUSY! People were in their swimming suits with their floating tubes walking down the middle of the road on main street. There was a constant flow of people getting in to float and those getting out and walking back to get in again. After we settled in we joined the crowd and went to check out the river. It looked like a lot of fun! We had heard that the river is lined with lava rock which is very sharp and that we should wear shoes. We also decided to keep shirts on as well as we saw a lot of scrapes on people. Over all the river looked mild and easy to float with only a few fun spots to get through. Monday morning the boys took off to get some golfing in and then we decided to head to the aquatic center to enjoy swimming, diving and the water slides. The boys were brave and went off the high dives. Jory even practiced his diving skills a little. In the afternoon we decided it was time to run the river and then we would come back for more swimming after. It took a while to pump up the tubes and then we walked up to the put in point. BreeAnn, Benson and I decided to stay warm and walk along the river path to watch the guys. We waved at all of them as they came around the first curve and then headed off around the corner to get on the path. We never saw them again until they came walking quickly down the trail to find us. I guess they didn't get much further before Camron's tube tipped over backwards and his head was sliced open a bit on a rock. By the time we got back to the pink house he was a bloody mess. Cody had taken really good care of him and had the bleeding pretty well stopped. We missed the insta-care in Lava by 10 minutes (of course) so we had to take a ride into Soda Springs to the emergency room. They took good care of us there. The most amazing part of all of this was that Camron did not faint. Usually when he sees his blood he passes right out. He was a good trooper through all of it. Friends had told us about a good place to eat in Soda Springs and a geyser to see so we stayed and saw the geyser go off and ate some dinner before heading back.

Surprisingly, Tuesday morning no one wanted to go run the river again. So we enjoyed a lazy morning, packed up to leave and then enjoyed a game of Frisbee golf on the way home. They have a nice course that circles around the aquatic center. It was great fun to have BreeAnn and Benson with us. We all enjoyed playing and holding Benson. The boys were all really cute with him and it made me smile to think of what great dad's they are all going to be!

We all decided that we were glad that we came to see what Lava Hot Springs was like, we enjoyed our stay but we don't think that we will be returning. I'm excited to start planning our next years adventures. With Jacob back home we need to party BIG!

We are now back to having a quiet, boring house with BreeAnn and Benson gone. We enjoyed EVERY minute of having them here with us and are counting the days until they move back to Utah (364!) There is just nothing better than Family! I hope and pray that my kids will continue to enjoy each others company and we will have many more reunions to come. Check out more fun pictures on BreeAnn's blog.