For nearly 50 years, the Benjamin Hewitt Tolman Reunion has been hosted annually by one of Benjamin Hewitt's children's families. He had 10 children, and Josh's grandpa Rex was one of them. There are only two that are still alive today: Aunt Louise and Uncle Ed. This year, Uncle Jack's family hosted the reunion on the family farm in Jerome, Idaho. I love the BHT Reunion, and I absolutely love it when it's hosted by Uncle Jack's family in Jerome! They are a large family (Jack also had 10 kids), and they are so fun to talk to and be around, and Kent & Sindy's backyard has so many play opportunities for kids!
The last time we were there for the reunion was 2004. At that time, Ammon was only 4 and the twins were 9 months old. Ammon was unable to join us for the reunion this year, because he was just returning from Scout Camp with my Dad's troop and was in Utah. Gideon offered to pick him up from my parent's house in Tremonton and bring him to Jerome, but he decided to stay with my parents for one more day before they brought him to Salmon. So, since I didn't get any photos of him at this year's reunion, here's a few photos of him from the reunion in 2004:
Ammon with cousin Cody by the eating area:
On the steps of the homemade playground equipment that Kent built in the yard:
Posing in the backyard playground with cousin Madison who is the same age:
This year's reunion was the weekend of June 21-23. Every major life event happened within our big extended family that weekend: cousin Danielle's wedding was in Brigham City on Friday, cousin Dale's funeral was in Jerome on Saturday, one of cousin Judy's children was baptized in Ogden on Saturday, and cousin Spencer's baby was due that weekend, too!
(I got to take a turn holding cousin Kayla's precious newborn daughter.)
As the family has grown, and multiple family generations have been created, it has become harder to have a weekend that everyone can join us! I was so glad we were able to attend this year's reunion. Josh and I drove down on Saturday morning with our 3 younger boys and arrived before lunch of Sloppy Joes began.
Lots of chairs placed under shade canopies provided the perfect opportunity for sitting & talking, which the adults did for HOURS! I enjoyed every minute of it! I laughed so hard! And Josh & I both got to talk to family members that we hadn't seen for years!
All of Josh's siblings came and were together for a little while that afternoon. I'm so grateful for family reunions that bring loved ones together and unite them!
While the adults visited, the children played non-stop in the Paradise Play-yard that was visible from where the adults were. It's truly the perfect set up for reunions!
Jonah on the zip line that runs through the yard (he & Micah both rode it a TON!):
Kanyon, Jonah, and Judson taking a ride in the barrel train:
Kanyon at the top of the giant homemade spiral slide:
Micah climbing the rope on the playground equipment:
Kanyon on the obstacle course & Micah on the spinning pipe:
For dinner, we ate some super delicious Soda-Pop chicken. It was seriously mouth-watering good!
After dinner, Kanyon and I walked around and looked at the chickens for a while. He just loves chickens! He was talking so sweetly to them, but they all kept running away from him!
That evening, I decided to be courageous and try the zip line. The last time I tried the zip line at a Tolman reunion, it was disastrous. It was the first time in my life I'd ridden one. It was really long, and started super high. I climbed up the platform, grabbed onto the handlebar, and began going down, but the bar stopped on the zip line midway down, and I freaked out!!! I screamed and my hands clenched on so tight. Josh grabbed my feet and ran me further down the line, 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! I was so for hours afterwards, and felt traumatized. So, I wanted to redeem myself from the last time, and I looked at the zip line in their backyard all day trying to gain the courage to do it. So, as people were leaving, I knew there would be less spectators, and it wouldn't be as embarrassing for me if it ended badly again. I went up the ladder quietly, but then cousin Janae saw me and started loudly cheering for me and pretty soon every single person in the entire yard was yelling and staring at me, and then I got super nervous. At that point, I wanted to just climb back down, but I felt humiliated just thinking about doing it. It took several minutes of me talking and crying and yelling and onlookers encouraging me before I finally did it. Thanks Aunt Linette for taking this {unattractive} photo of me as proof that I actually went through with it!
So then Josh had to try it, too, and of course he made it look so good and easy...
Cousin Janae was leaving the following morning for Germany; her husband was stationed there and she was moving there with her kids. Her kids had a goodbye photo together with some of their cousins, and there were lots of tears and hugs!
And that's when we decided to leave and drive back home. It was about 9:30, and the last remnants of the sun were still visible in the sky. We got home at 1:30 in the morning--which was super late and hard to drive after midnight because we were both so tired, but at least the kids slept on the trip which made it nice, because that morning when we drove down, we had a child puke on the winding river road to Challis.
That day was my most favorite yet of this summer. It was the prefect combination of adult time and kid play time. I loved laughing and visiting with family, and watching the boys have so much fun in the yard. Thanks to the Jack Tolman family for hosting another awesome reunion! We all loved it!
