We did a big ol' vacation for most of the month of August. Elliot missed the first week of school, but not the second because his school shut down because of a Covid outbreak.
First stop: Alpine for a Johnson family reuinion! Getting there is always a hike for us. We flew into Salt Lake and spent a night on the Farm with my Uncle Dave and Aunt Audrey.
Honoring the tradition of letting little kids drive on the rocky road that dead ends at the farm.
Things got a little swervy.
Aunt Audrey was awesome and had these rocket things for us to play with. Elliot was SO into it. Isaac enjoyed the novelty of lush grass.
Big thanks to Uncle Dave and Aunt Audrey to treating us to some Reed's Dairy ice cream!
This picture captures the essence of childhood summertime.
Time for a walk to one of my favorite places on earth.
They liked it as much as I did.
Then it was on to Alpine!
The big group picture! "Only" around 100 people showed up this year. If all of the desendents of my Grandma and Grandpa Johnson showed up, there would be more than twice that many.
My dad and his siblings
Within minutes of arriving, my kid were drinking soda in the “secret fort” under the tree. And thus began the three week sugar rush.
My gal by our cabin. We scored one that was close enough that our baby monitor reached the back corner of the lodge. Sooo nice at nap and bedtime.
Annie with her Alpine Store spoils.
My autistic cousin Rohan was intensely obsessed with the Billy Joel live from Shea Stadium 2008 concert. He constantly re-enacted the concert and enlisted others to perform the opening act for him and be his back up singers. He scored this awesome golden microphone at the alpine store that really upped the experience.
Isaac taking a turn on the very out of tune piano when it wasn’t being used for a Billy Joel concert
I was in charge of a kids nature walk. I whipped out my classic duct tape nature bracelet activity. At the end I realized that two of the boys had live grasshoppers taped to their bracelets.
Kristen contributed with delux bubbles blown with a rope ring supported by two dowel rods. The main ingredient was veterinary grade lubricant with a big "NOT FOR PUBLIC SALE" warning on it. I was very amused by the thought of my cousin obtaining contraband items for the family reunion.
The Glen clan was in charge of the Women's retreat this year. My task was to attempt to reign mom in. I quickly resigned myself to utterly failing at that task and somewhat helped with the garland you see depicted here. We did a speed dating type game to get to know relatives.
Annie was quite shy around most of her relatives... except for the time that she started taking her shirt off in front of the whole family at bonfire time? Not quite sure what she was thinking there.
Alpine highlights:
-My cousin Amber came equiped with power tools and constructed an obstacle course in the field that my kids spent many hours on
-Kristen and Amber (really the stars of the show this year) also put together an intense escape room in old Chester Hall. Elliot and I did it together with a few other relatives, and it was a true challenge.
-For the bonfire this year, we broke into groups and each had to whip together a musical number. My group did a rousing rendition of "in the jungle" with a truly magnificent falsetto solo by Josh Williams.
-Someone put together an awesome video to celebrate what would have been my Grandma's 100th birthday. They read her life history and put pictures and music to it. I laughed, I cried, it was wonderful.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rDJ07Q78EA
Alpine Lowlights: Isaac got sick. Like puking off and on for an hour during the middle of the night. It was a unique challenge dealing with the puke in a cabin with all our kids. We managed to not wake up Elliot and Annie while changing bedding and containing the puke in our cabin without running water. We got through the night with flashlights, wipes, and hand sanitizer. The next morning Aaron took all our contaminated things to the laundry at the hotel where Mimi and Grumpa were staying. Then we had a fun time trying to keep Isaac distanced from everyone else for the next while. Fortunately he was pretty good about staying in his stroller and the second night we made it through with no puke.
After Alpine we went back to the Farm for another night, where we found these neat unicorn hats in the basement crawl space.
The next day, we planned on going to church in Idaho Falls and then driving down to spend a night in Orem with Aunt Wendi. That plan quickly went out the window when Elliot woke up puking. I think Isaac had a new round as well, or maybe that was before Alpine... it all kind of blends together in memory. Mimi and Grump went on without us while we stayed at the already contaminated house of the long suffering Dave and Audrey.
The not sick gals got to go on a lovely sunday farm walk.
Luckily the stomachs settled down pretty quickly. The next day we woke up early to drive 4 hours to Salt Lake followed by many more hours flying to Virginia.
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