After the camping trip we all went home, took long showers, gave the boys a good bath, and hung out for another couple days at G'pa's house. By then Kendra had shown up with their cousin Jennifer and Lisa & Jonathan (Lisa's boyfriend.....ugh) were there. It was a full house! Paul & I had been using their trailer outside to sleep in since the inside was already full enough. The weather was beautiful the whole time we were in Oregon so staying outside was actually pretty nice. Kendra & Jen actually slept outside under the stars!
**The boys waking up Kendra & Jennifer in the morning.**
**Ben playing with cars (shocker!) at G'ma's house.**Ryan helping G'pa mow the lawn. He was loving that!**
The Jackson Family Reunion was very much a big exciting event! It was held at a 4H camp near Le Grande and there were LOTS of people there! I was surprised at the number of children there!! There were TONS of kids so our boys were quite excited. Especially Ryan who more recently has taken an interest in playing with other "kids," as Ryan excitedly says. The weird part was that our Ryan & Ben (and Bree & Peyton who are cousin Jen's kids) were great-grandkids while all the other kids there were only grandkids! Paul is the great-grandson of Alpheus Jackson and grandson of Jeron Jackson; and although Jeron is not the oldest of his siblings, he was the first to start his family, apparently by several years!
We shared a cabin with Jennifer, Jarom & their kids, Steve (Jennifer's brother), and Kendra. That was a lot of fun. Kevin (another cousin) joined us for games the first night, and we sang songs (actually, that was mostly Steve), quoted movie lines, and ate candy for a few hours. We were only up until midnight but we were kind of loud and we heard complaints the next day of how we stayed up til 3 in the morning! For real! I checked the clock and it was only 12:00 when the lights went out! But none of us were really very remorseful, we had a good time! We just got lucky to have the fun cabin!!
**Bree & Ryan were best buds all week and wanted to share a bunk.**Ben in his bag.**
**Kendra & Jen in the cabin.**
**My dear, sweet Paul climbing the rafters....yeah, no question that Ryan comes by it honestly!**
The activities were planned very well the next day for all the kids! Paul & I were very impressed with the number of activities they had and how well organized it all was. Ryan was in heaven! They got to make little sand necklaces...Ryan made one but ended up bringing someone else's home somehow; they painted craft animals, there was a huge bounce house water slide for the kids, an Easter egg hunt (in July! but sooo fun!), and then there were games and socializing for the adults. Actually, Paul, Kendra, Jennifer, Jarom, Kevin, Steve & I all snuck off to go get ice cream at a little ice cream place the family always visits every time we come. When we got back, we found Ryan on the water slide with all the other kids...someone had loaned him a swim suit. He was happy as could be! **We got some video of this but I'll have to post it later.**
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That evening they did their family "auction". It's really more of a selective raffle. Everyone brought items to raffle off, mostly home-made things, and then they put cups in front of everything and you buy tickets and then put your tickets in front of the things you would like to take home. Then they pick a name out of the cup. They use the money to fund the next reunion. They had lots of items to choose from for adults and children. The one thing Ryan wanted was this RoseArt set of "feet" that you put chalk powder in, strap them to your feet, and they make animal tracks....there are five different types of tracks they made. I tried to get him to show me what else he was interested in but that was the only thing that caught his eye. Aunt Kendra had already put in several tickets for him but I added a couple more since he seemed to have his heart set on it. And he WON! the feet. He's walked around with them on his feet a couple times since but I haven't put the chalk in them yet. I'm a little afraid of the consequences there. Paul & I took home a wooden plaque that says "hand in hand into eternity". Ben got a book.
We didn't spend the night the next night. We instead went back to G'ma's house to spend the last night there before the journey back to Utah. We made sure to take a five-generation photo with Paul's great-grandma Higley (Ryan & Ben's great-great), his grandma Jackson, Evelyn, Paul, and my boys! That's a pretty cool picture to have!
For the drive back to Utah on Sunday Kendra ended up having Steve with her. He chose to hang out with us one more night instead of going with Kevin, his ride back to Rexburg, who had to be back in Parma, ID early on Saturday. Steve did need to be in Parma by Sunday though and we were driving back to Utah with Kendra together (kind of caravaning for safety sake) so we stopped with them in Parma on Sunday...........................where Kendra locked her keys in the car! (For the first time ever, in her defense!) That gave us a little more of a layover in Idaho than we were planning but it sure made for an eventful afternoon!
Kevin's family was at church when we got there but Kevin came home when Steve called and let them know what happened. Then they called the police chief, who happened to be in their ward, to help get the keys out. After a lot of trying, probably more than 30 min of time, and some creative thinking, we finally got the keys out. As the police chief wedged the passenger door open, I slipped a long wire hanger through and managed to hook the keys that were sitting in the center console, and pulled them out through the tight opening. It was a great memory to end the vacation! (And it put me on Steve's top 10 favorite people list! ;) )
The drive home was mostly uneventful except for a huge crash we passed in Idaho. It was an SUV pulling a trailer. I don't know what happened but from the looks of it, it was fatal. The trailer was in splinters!! It looked as though they both had rolled a couple times and I think the took another car with them. Not pretty. It made me very grateful that we traveled so safely to and from Oregon.
Overall, the Oregon trip was 3 mini-trips in one, Boise, camping, & the reunion. It was a BLAST and we were very grateful to have been able to go. Unfortunately I didn't get a ton of great pictures from the trip....it seems like I don't have pictures of more than half of what I wrote about but I'll get better, hopefully, about knowing which pictures to take. And I know we have a 5-generation picture but I can't find it at the moment so I'll have to post it later. These were the best I could do!
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