FAMILY REUNION

I've finally been able to get my pictures off my camera, and I'm ready to blog about one of the most amazing experiences we've had in a long time - our Thurston Family Reunion!

It's been 10 years since every member of my Thurston side of the family were all together. I think we are a close family, and we see each other and/or keep in touch individually pretty well. But we don't get to see each other all together often enough! My amazing Aunt Darla decided it was time to plan a family reunion, and she went to a lot of expense and work to make it happen. It was a truly miraculous, amazing, incredible experience for me, and I will never forget it!

Day 1

We woke up extremely early to get to the airport to make our morning flight. This was Katelee's first time flying, and I was a little nervous about it. I hate flying, generally, but I ended up being remarkably relaxed (for me!) and Katelee loved it. She was fabulous on the airplane, loved looking out the window at the scenery, and thought it was a great adventure!

Because of our early flight, we were the first ones to arrive at the hotel. My Aunt Darla & Uncle Scott had reserved all of us rooms at the Little America in downtown Salt Lake City. Our rooms were beautiful! We felt so spoiled!

(Thanks to whichever one of my cousins took this picture!)

My Aunt Darla & Uncle Scott also put together these amazing gift baskets to go in each room, complete with TONS and TONS of TONS of food and special treats. This picture doesn't do justice to how much amazing stuff was in here. When we emptied our basket and organized everything, it completely covered our entire table! What a nice surprise!

We spent most of this day catching up on sleep, exploring the hotel, and greeting other family members as they all arrived throughout the day and evening! And, of course, we had to try out the hotel swimming pool and hot tub, which was lots of fun!

Day 2

The second morning we gathered for ... (you guessed it!) ... FAMILY PICTURES! Every single one of my grandparents' descendants were there which made for a large group of 62 people (and LOTS of little kids)! Pictures were definitely an adventure, but turned out in the end! Included in our gift baskets were these cute matching shirts. On the front they said "Got Family?" And on the back they had listed all 63 names. (My Grandpa Thurston died before I was born, so that is why there are only 62 people in the picture.) After listing all the names, at the bottom, the shirt says "63 and Counting..." So cute! My talented Aunt Kim took some professional pics of all of us, but here are a few that were snapped with my camera, or that I stole from my cousin Jaime's blog! ;)

(Thanks Jaime!)

All of us together!

Grandma with all her children and their spouses.

Grandma with all her great-grand-children. This was seriously an impossible picture, and so hilarious! This is the best version I personally could catch.

These are all the grandchildren (in other words, me and all my first cousins and siblings).

After pictures, we gathered a few blocks away at the scrumptious Italian restaurant Buca di Beppo, where we were treated to an all-you-can eat meal of pasta, salad and bread. I ate way too much, it was soooo delicious!

Following lunch, we went back to the hotel to give Katelee a nap and to do some visiting. Then that evening, Katelee went to play and swim with some of her other cousins while the grown-ups went to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas Concert.

Temple Square was beautiful, and Gerald and I loved the concert, as always!

What a great day!

Day 3

We met in a conference room of the hotel for our 'reunion' day. The first order of business was Family Bingo. Bingo cards were made using photos of all the members of the family. They were so cute! (Can you see them on the table above?) The Bingo game was also a White Elephant Gift Game. When someone had Bingo, they got to choose a wrapped gift from the table. With the adults, we also had the option of stealing gifts from other adults. Once a gift was stolen twice, it was 'locked' so that it couldn't be stolen again. My brother-in-laws J.D. and Todd got Bingo at the same time as I did. They had it all worked out so that Todd would steal a $50 Visa card that someone had already opened, and then I could steal it from him and it would be locked. We thought that was so sweet of them to plot to help us win that prize! We also ended up with a gift card to Chili's - one of Gerald's favorite restaurants. Fun!

Katelee's prize was this Barbie toy:

As soon as she opened it up, she yelled, "This is exactly what I wanted!" which gave us a good laugh. We were glad that she was happy, and she had a fabulous time playing with her roller-skating Barbie.

Following Bingo, we enjoyed a delicious catered lunch while watching some of Grandma's family videos - which were quite a hoot! Then grandma spoke to us a bit about the theme of our reunion - No Empty Chairs. There were no empty chairs at the reunion (meaning we were all there) and our family goal is no empty chairs in heaven.

We had a nativity and some musical numbers. Then grandma had asked me to plan a few musical numbers with the little kids. We used bells, maracas, and the parachute, and it was a little wild but I think they had fun!

As we were singing "Here Comes Santa Claus," Santa himself appeared!! Every child got to sit on his lap and have a nice conversation with Santa. He was very talkative and it was so much fun to see each kid's personality as they interacted with him!

Santa brought everyone in the room a gift, and after he left we were allowed to open them up!

New pillows and pillowcases with our names embroidered on them!

Somehow Santa had the same fabric that we had chosen to represent each of us, and that fabric was used to make our perfect pillowcases!

The pillow gift turned into a spontaneous pillow fight! This was probably Katelee's favorite part of the day! She had a blast pillow fighting with a huge room full of people!

I even got a short video of the pillow fight as it was dying down! I think I caught almost everyone in the room on the video - sooo much fun!

This is what little Lila did during the pillow fight - soooo darling!

After the pillow fight ended, we cuddled up with our pillows for a Christmas story. My mom was asked to choose a Christmas story to read, and she chose the book The Year of the Perfect Christmas Tree by Gloria Houston. My aunt Darla gave every family their own copy of the book, and so we followed along as my mom read it to everyone in the room.

After the story, there were more family videos, some more words from my grandma and aunt, more prizes and gifts, and some final words from my uncle. Also, all the adult men gathered and gave my dad a blessing for his health. That was a very tender moment for everyone.

Oh, and my amazingly talented Aunt Kim made my grandma and my Aunt Darla both a quilt that has a piece of each of our personally chosen fabrics (same as the pillowcases) in it. All our names are embroidered around the sides, too. The quilts are so gorgeous and I love that there is a piece of each of us in them!

After the reunion time ended, my parents and siblings and our families all took Trax together to Temple Square again to show the kiddos the lights. The lights were beautiful!

After that, it was back to the hotel for dinner and (of course!) more swimming!Day 4

I was sad to see the amazing reunion ending! This day I mostly spent packing up, having last-minute (and much needed!) chats with loved ones, and saying good-bye. We checked out of the hotel a little before noon, and went with my parents and siblings to visit our Grandma Kaye! We love visiting Kaye's house and enjoyed talking with her for awhile. Then we made a stop at Cabela's for lunch and sightseeing. Katelee always loves to see the fish at Cabela's.

Madi and Brittany feeding the fish.

The biggest camping chair I've ever seen!

Katelee enjoyed her Cabela's lunch. With her chocolate-milk-mustache and walrus teeth, she think she is pretty hilarious!

After Cabela's, we said our good-byes.

I am so grateful to everyone for making this amazing reunion possible! Without it, I probably wouldn't have had the blessing of seeing my parents and siblings at Christmastime at all this year. And it really did me so much good to see my grandma, aunts, uncles, and amazing cousins again. I feel blessed that as I looked around the room during the reunion, I could honestly say that many of my very best friends in the world were there in that room with me. I love my family, and feel such strength from them, and grateful to be part of such a wonderful group of people.