Merrill Family Reunion 2016

Before the reunion, we decided to stop for lunch with a group of friends in Provo to get some Thai food. It was sooooo delicious and even more fun to see family and friends. We know some of the best people. I should have gotten a picture of the whole group but Larry and family met us there too. Scott and Ashley had a blast playing together.

The last time my family was together was for Dave and Nikki's wedding in June of 2008. Since then there have been 3 more weddings, 5 missions,  and 9 grandchildren born (well actually 10 now but at the time of the reunion 9). It was so fun to get everyone together and my parents found a perfect place. A cabin where all 24 of us could fit, comfortably even!

This is the description of the cabin we stayed at up in Brighton, Utah for the reunion.

On the first morning, we had my brother in law's brother in law come and take a family picture for us. They turned out great! What a cute family I have!

Lots of years ago, my aunt gave my family shirts that said Merrill Mania on them because that's what her family jokingly called us with our nine kids. The name has stuck and we have periodically gotten new ones. Here we are, the original eleven.

I couldn't find a picture of us nine that we were all looking at the camera so instead of having one where just one of us looked funny, I decided to choose one where multiple were doing something funny...and of course it was nice that I was looking at the camera :)

I love these three!

After pictures, we went on a walk around the lake right by the cabin. We got lots of comments about how many of us there were and that we all had matching shirts. It's a small world, as we walked, one man made a comment about our shirts and by the time my parents passed them he stopped them to talk to them. Turns out he knew my mom's family and asked "Are you an Andersen?"

This was the exciting cousins' table. What good, cute kids!

There was a fun loft at the cabin with tons of toys. This ladder went up to it.

The afternoon after pictures and playing hard all morning, Scott insisted he didn't need a nap. Some of us went for a hike sans children and Scott promptly fell asleep watching a show with Aunt Jenni.

Our hike up to some lakes by the ski resort:

These two are a week and a couple days apart. So cute!

That night we had a talent show of talents we were asked to perform. There was a rule of no video recording which is probably a good thing since I had to do some lip syncing...yikes :) We decided to do it to Let it Go and it was fun to see the nieces and nephews laugh, but I'm pretty sure it's a good thing that there is no video proof of it...

Stan got put on the kazoo squad and Scott REALLY wanted in on the action.

Sunday Stan and I had dinner assignment. We decided to bring a little of New Mexico to our family and have some Green Chile Enchiladas.

We had breakfast burritos one morning and Scott decided to eat his burrito like this...

We went to the Bean Museum down at BYU one morning. Scott LOVED seeing all of the animals.

Afterward we headed to the park to have some pizza and then spent the afternoon swimming at the Provo Rec Center. It was such a fun pool area they had there. Stan and Scott did water slide after water slide. It was so fun to see them play together and laugh and laugh.

We decided to take it easy on Tuesday and just enjoy a day around the cabin.

Scott and Aubrey being cute cousins talking on the stairs

It was so fun to see these cousins play together

Scott trying to be like Ethan :)

Stan and I went on a hike together. It was so fun to just walk and talk together. I love this man and how fun it is to be with him. I love planning with him and going on adventures with him.

We found these beautiful flowers

And there were LOTS of them. We find these in New Mexico a lot but they are purple.

The aspens on this trail were so pretty

And then right after that picture we rounded the corner to see this awesome view of opening in the trees.

Love some paintbrush

There were lots of mines in the area and Stan ran up to one real quick and found this leftover from the mining days.

When we got back from our hike, Scott was hanging out with his cousins out here and Stan joined. The relationship these two have is my favorite.

We had our FHE on Tuesday night and talked about finding names of our ancestors. It was fun to see all my family sitting around a campfire talking about the goodness of our Father's plan for us.

And we finished off the night with delicious s'mores!

Last morning playing with cousins

These three are all within six months of each other.

We finished up the reunion by stopping at the Church History Museum.

It was so cute to see Scott say goodbye to all his "cousin friends".

Love cousin hugs

But then Ethan wasn't quite sure what to think when Scott wanted to give him a kiss on the cheek.

Once Scott was hugging, all the cousins started hugging :)

It was such a fun trip and we loved making memories with our family.