Hinton Family Reunion 2019

June 30th- July 6th was our annual Hinton Family reunion.

We rented a cabin in Brian Head, Utah and spent Sunday through Saturday there.  We had a wonderful time.  One of the highlights for me was on Sunday as each family arrived.  The kids were SO excited to be together and their joy was palpable as they greeted each other and ran around deciding who would sleep where.  There is no greater joy than family. This year, Jared and Kristen were in charge of planning and carrying out the reunion.  The theme was "Jesus is a God of Miracles."  Brielle designed the t-shirts.  It has each of our names on it many times in varying sizes.  The names form a fish and loaf- representing Jesus' miracles. Brielle is so creative and talented.

We had so many fun activites.  Each family was assigned to prepare a game or activity to do on Monday morning.  Princes brought "Don't Eat the Prophet!"  The kids LOVED it!

Mackrorys brought Eat the donut without hands.  Makes great pictures:

One of my favorite pictures from the reunion.  Audrey could see Hannah was struggling, so broke the rules a bit to help her.  Sometimes you just have to break the rules.

Gabe may have broken the rules too!

Camerons did a selfie scavenger hunt.  Teams were formed with one adult and one or two children on each team.  The pictures were so cute.  Here are few of them:

Kristen was with Lily and Kenny.  (Kenny said this was his favorite part of the whole reunion)

Grandpa was with Gabe and Nathan

Brian was with Audrey and William

Michelle partnered with Caleb and Sam Sam

Shonna hung with Jaron and Jacob

This is the text Shonna sent with the list of things each team had to find and include in the selfies.

Brielle and Hannah Rose made an awesome team. I was supposed to be with them, but I volunteered to hold the baby on the couch!

At the end of the reunion we asked the kids what their favorite part of the reunion was.  Several of them mentioned this selfie scavenger hunt.  It was really fun.

Some of the dads, moms, and kids went fishing.  Jaron caught his first-ever fish and was thrilled.

Caleb caught a big one, too.  They brought them back and Brian prepared them to eat with dinner.

Each day we had a devotional, taking turns presenting it, using the "Come, Follow Me" lesson from that week. We all learned the song "The Miracle."  There is a video of us singing it at the end of the post.  I thought it was so cute how little William wanted to have the music paper, too.  He LOVES this song.  Each time we finished singing, he would say, "Again."   Though he doesn't in the video, he can sing every word.

A shot from the loft. God's view of our family.

Audrey and Lily had so much fun playing together all during the reunion.  They really bonded.

These were some of the "inside" kids.  A lot of the kids wanted to be outside building a fort every second they could, but these kids preferred to play inside.  Confession:  I'm an inside kid, too.

Kristen and Jared were in charge of the reunion (the kids take turns.)  They did a lot of planning several months before the reunion and sent out assignments, not knowing that they would get a new job offer and move from Wisconsin to Denver right before the reunion. It all happened so fast!   It was a hugely difficult time for Kristen and she arrived exhausted.  Baby Elisabeth had a terrible cough and Kristen was up with her much of that first night.  When we woke up on Monday we found them sleeping on the couch like this.

I took the baby and Kristen's sisters tucked Kristen in so she could get a good nap.  She was exhausted.

Feeding the crowd is always a challenge at a reunion.  But it worked out really well this year I think.  The first morning Ken and I made whole wheat pancakes and bacon.  We made a ton and the kids snacked on those pancakes all week.  Poor Ken got bacon spatters on his purple shirt.  It had to be thrown away.  Sad.  I loved that shirt.
Other meals included:
Barbecued hamburgers and hot dogs, Cafe' rio salads, spaghetti, pizza, breakfast casserole, mountain man breakfast, cereal and muffins, macaroni and cheese, and sandwiches.

Michelle led us in our first devotional and had a fun activity for us.  Then we celebrated Lily's and Gabbi's birthdays with a fun birthday party.

The highlight was the cellophane prize ball. You can rip the cellophane til the one in front of you rolls doubles.  Michelle had filled that ball with lots of candy and great prizes.

Little Sammy was SO cute trying to roll doubles.  

On his turn unwrapping, Sammy got a plastic medal Gabbi had donated that she won in a library contest.  Sammy LOVED that medal.

And still does.  Kristen says he still wears it all the time.  Following are two pictures she has texted to me recently that prove that:

Gabe trying for doubles

Lily opening her presents

Heavy heavy hang over thy poor head.

Gabbi with the blanket we gave her.

How many shoes can one family have?

This is one of my favorite pictures from the reunion

Smores were on the menu Monday evening.  Yum!

Everyone had so much fun toasting the giant marshmallows and . . . 

Eating them!

Bedtime story.  Our daughters and sons-in-law are faithful at reading to their kids every night.

Baby Elisabeth was a kid magnet.  She was always surrounded by lots of kids.

How we love this little guy.

Grandpa and baby Elisabeth.  In this pictures you can see Grandpa's bacon-spattered shirt.  I should have let him wear the apron I brought.

Another fishing trip on the beautiful lake:

Love these beautiful lake pictures.

Nathan loves to fish.

They had a fun playground near the lake that the little ones enjoyed.

Don't squeeze the living daylights out of him, Grandpa.

This was often my spot during the reunion.  I set up by William, trying to get him to eat.  If you "Choo choo train" the food or "airplane" it and then clap when he eats it, you can get quite a few calories down him. "Yea, William!"

We were assigned groups and did skits of the miracles of Jesus.

Follow the prophet

Watching a video

Beautiful daughters in their Aloha shirts from last year's trip to Hawaii.

One day was a hike and picnic in beautiful Bryce Canyon:

To keep Gabe safe, he had a bear "leash.:"

One of my favorite pictures from the reunion.  Maybe my favorite of all.  How we love each one of these precious kids.  This is our grandchildren in order of their birth.  The two youngest were strapped to a parent's back, so not in the picture.  

Cousins.  This is also one of my favorite pictures from the reunion.

One of my favorite pictures from the reunion.  You will see this one on our Christmas card!

Little Sammy didn't want any more pictures

Jared came behind us and held up Sammy between Brielle and I so he wouldn't cry.  Jared can always think of a solution.

One day we went down to St. George for a very special reason:  Ken's brother Don is in the St. George temple presidency.  He volunteered to do a special family sealing session for us.  It was a beautiful experience to have all of our daughters and their spouses in the temple together and do family sealings.  It was the highlight of the reunion.  Thank you so much Don!!

One of my favorite pictures from the reunion.

We hired babysitters for the morning while we were in the temple.  While in St. George, we stayed for the afternoon and did our annual talent show at our house, so we could have access to the piano.   Good thing, too, as many of our grandchildren chose to play the piano for their talent.

About 15 years ago our family did the "Three Little Pigs Rap" for a talent show for the Lavar Hinton family reunion.  These girls had not practiced it at all since then and got up and did it for this reunion. I just couldn't believe they could remember it.  It was so cute.  I should have taken a picture of their children watching them.  They were just mesmerized

One of my favorite pictures from the reunion. Ya, like these two ever take naps!!

Brian and Jaron duet

Lily and Shonna duet

Lily

I can't tell you how pleased I am that so many of our grandchildren are taking piano lessons and are doing really well.  I am so proud of them!  This is Jacob playing "Home on the Range."

Gabbi sang a beautiful solo.

Caleb

Nathan

Hannah

Talent show participants are always rewarded with cousin hugs

Audrey (she was supposed to do a dance, but got shy about that with most everyone playing the piano.)

Brielle also played the piano, but the picture didn't turn out.

Even baby Elisabeth performed

One of my favorite pictures from the reunion.

The kids always love to play downstairs at grandma's.  We have lots of fun toys.

Yep, another favorite picture from the reunion!  Isn't Elisabeth beautiful?

Instead of the traditional birthday cake, Gabbi wanted root beer floats for her birthday treat (She loves root beer floats.)  We bought the ice cream while we were in St. George and had her blow out her candle in her root beer float.

Back at the cabin!

The shoes seem to be having babies.

Brielle is so cute with the little ones.

Grandpa Ken held a special meeting with older grandkids on etiquette, social relations, and testimony.

Audrey and Lily 

Everyone wanted turns holding Elisabeth.

A tradition is to rub each others backs and play with hair.

Grandpa with the Prince boys

Doing a skit.  I think Brielle was the blind man.

Hannah got the phone and took lots of pictures of her mom.

The kids loved being outside in the mountains.

They spent hours and hours building a pretty impressive fort.

I think this is a precious picture of Kenny.

One of my favorite pictures from the reunion.  Love these kids!  The "outside" kids.

This one makes me happy, too!

Other activities that I don't have pictures of:  Parenting class (the older cousins did activities with the younger ones while we met together), Seminar on the symbolism of the temple, game nights, , testimony meeting where we all shared a miracle in our own life in the past year, etc.  It was a perfect reunion with a good mix of scheduled activities and free time!  Thank you Jared and Kristen for planning the perfect reunion!

Our theme song:

We feel so blessed that our family wants to be together and are willing make the sacrifice to do it.  We love our family!!!!