Zip and Slide

The annual B.H. Tolman Reunion was the 2nd week of July. This year, Uncle Ed's family hosted. All of Ed and Aunt Joy's children and their families came. And because of this, I got to meet some of Josh's cousins for the first time since we were married!

Uncle Ed, Aunt Joy, and their 9 children:

The reunion was at the Steadman Place in Raft River, Idaho. It was such a cool place! There's playground equipment, waterslides with tubes, a zip line, pavilions with picnic tables, a waterfall, a sandbox, and camping spots.

This was the view from the parking lot:

Classic Tire Swing! 4 in 1:

Josh riding the zip line for the first time:

There were two waterslides, a shorter one and a longer one.

Jonah and Micah tried the shorter one first:

And Josh and Ammon started on the larger one and never stopped!

No matter how much I coaxed Kanyon, he refused to go on either slide.

He was content to play with the kiddie slip 'n slide!

 After a while, Jonah and Micah joined Josh and Ammon on the larger slide:

And then it wasn't too long before they tried to figure out how many people they could fit on a tube together, or in a train of tubes together. Here's the front of one of their attempts:

 And the back view of that same attempt:

They never tired of going down! Here's another run at it with even more relatives riding together:

At the end of the day, the owner of the reunion home did a candy cannon in the backyard. It was so awesome! She did three rounds: little kids, older kids, and adults. This is of the little kids' round:

And right before it was time to leave, Kanyon finally decided he wanted to try the tube waterslide.

He sat on my lap, and we had our first and last run of the day.

He wanted to go more after we slid down, but there was no more time, unfortunately.

And just for the fun of it, right before we left, I decided to try to ride the zip line for the first time in my life. And it ended disastrous... The zip line stopped midway down, and I freaked out!!! I screamed and my hands clenched on so tight. Josh grabbed my feet and ran me down further, and it stopped midway again! I couldn't believe it! Josh came to my rescue again, and by the time I was at the end, my fingers were so tightly wrapped around the bar, I couldn't undo them!!! My arms were cramped, too, and I began bawling. It was awful! Unfortunately, I don't have any photos of it, either!

After the Steadman Place, we went to a park in Burley to have pizza and potluck for dinner. And that ended the reunion. It was an absolutely gorgeous, fun, and delightful day! We had such a grand time together! The BH Tolman reunion started over 40 years ago, with the 10 children of Benjamin Hewitt and their spouses. Josh's grandfather Rex was one of those children. They each took a turn hosting the reunion, and it rotated each year between them, from oldest to youngest. The only remaining descendants alive today of Benjamin's children and their spouses are Ed & Joy, Louise & Joe, and Vonda. We don't know how much longer these reunions will continue, but we sure love them and are grateful for the opportunity it gives us to create happy memories with our loved ones!

Uncle Joe, Uncle Ed, Aunt Joy, and Aunt Louise: