Family reunion: our first

I didn't get many pictures so I asked Mark to send me what he had.  Helpful.  Thanks Mark.

I got the idea from Marianne:  establish a family reunion tradition now.  We rented a house near St. George for a few days and had a lovely time.

The drive there was mostly Braeden on a Zoom call for a work meeting and Emma frantically finishing a 10 page paper in French.  Gone are the days I had to plan distractions for road trips.  (I still need to pack snacks.)

Once we arrived, we did a little grocery shopping and spent a little time at the pool.  We played golf (the card game) and talked about starting a movie but then it was 9:30 and we all know that's too late for Thelma to start a movie.

Saturday we drove to Zion National Park but the canyon was full and closed.  Instead we drove through the Mt. Carmel tunnel and saw the beautiful scenery and went to the gift shop.  A national park gift shop is only rivaled by an art museum gift shop for awesomeness.

The people at the park told us that they would open up the canyon at 6:00 PM, so we decided to come back.

We returned to our little house and spent more time at the pool.

Anna fits in perfectly with my pale faces

We also watched An Inspector Calls which Braeden and Anna recommended.  It was so good!  We had an early dinner (which turned out to be the first of two dinners) and headed back to Zion.

This time we got in and it was perfect.  The light was beautiful, the temperature had cooled and it wasn't too crowded.

We hiked up the trail to where you enter the water for the Narrows.  It was one of the few times we remembered to take pictures.

There are Braeden and Adam in the background.

Adam took this one of Braeden and Anna.  I love these two together.

These two are pretty great also.

We hit Dairy Queen on the drive back for ice cream and second dinner (depending on who you were).  

Saturday, Braeden and Anna made us breakfast and we packed up and headed to Sand Hollow Reservoir.

Except it was full.

When other options are limited, the great outdoors draws a crowd!  Our second choice was Quail Creek Reservoir.  We set up a little sunshade for me and everyone else went into the water.  I had a good book to read and should have been very happy and satisfied, but I was hot.  The sunshade was also good at trapping heat.  Mark wasn't feeling well because of the perfect storm of changing his sensor and eating breakfast then taking his pump off to swim.  His glucose levels were all out of whack.  We still need to learn ways to make that all work better.

We left the reservoir after only a few hours.  We had lunch in Cedar City and then drove home.  Mark and Emma curated songs.  They had people create categories:  songs I don't like but everyone else does, songs I would listen to if I had to do dishes, songs that tell a story, songs that make me feel vague and uncertain, songs that have a message I endorse, a song from when I was 12.  It was fun and we sometimes sang along quite loudly and we sometimes said, "OK, can we skip this song now?"

I think we will call our first family reunion a success.  Lots of things didn't work out exactly as planned but it was OK.  We were together and we were happy.