Boone Family Reunion '09

Let's see, for me the whole thing started on Saturday, July 18, when I headed up to Bountiful. I went up on Saturday as I needed to give a talk on Sunday with Daddy as his return missionary companion. We spoke on the Articles of Faith in the 9th branch. That branch is way cool. It is the retired people's branch next to this one hospital which I can't remeber what is called. It is in Bountiful. Naturally.

After we finished that assignment, I went back to the home (4th) ward to listen to Christina talk in sacrament meeting. After church, we had choir, dinner and headed off. We drove my car to Provo and then I helped in driving all of us through the night to Snowflake, AZ. When I say we in this case, it includes Mother, Daddy, Joseph, Maren, me, Kathryn, Elisabeth, Christina, Morgan, Tanner, George, Mary, Whitney Checketts, Laura Checketts, Lietta Checketts and Uncle Samuel. We got to Snowflake safely even though we drove right through the wreck site of 18 years ago. I guess that the curse may only work if we are going north from the family reunion! We still don't know, as will be commented on later in the post.

We got to Silver Creek Campground not first, but close. We set up tents, had lunch and started the talking, playing and general rendevous'ing.

The various activities that we had available to us were volleyball, canoeing and rowing, swimming (although the famous slide down the dam had fallen apart, making it unusable), softball, basketball, a little train for the youngest children (which I got to drive for a while before the tractor pulling it became too persnicity), an assortment of crafts, food galore, morning devotionals, evening programs, board and card games, group games like mafia and "how's yours?", and, of course, visiting with family. The underlined ones are the ones that I took part in.

Everyone had their own experiences leading to a varied but very good time for everyone. The last night there we had a nice slide show that Daddy put on. There were lots of pictures of people. After about an hour or so, Daddy got up and said that his pictures went on forever, but the night didn't, so he cut it. You can probably get a copy of it from him, which has a lot more very hi-res pictures than I do.

Friday night was an all nighter for many. I went to bed, then got up and watched Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow until 2:30 in the morning. Saturday we packed up the camp and headed home. Joseph, Maren, Whitney, Laura, Lietta and Uncle Samuel left Friday night, so they weren't with us. A few hours after leaving Daddy suddenly had thought that we should go and see the Grand Canyon, which none of us had had the opportunity to see before. So we headed off and saw it. I must say that any picture or model I have ever seen never comes close to the actuality of the canyon. Even looking at it from above doesn't give it justice. It is an amazing hole in the ground. I recommend it to any interested. However, going and seeing the Grand Canyon led to our arrival in Provo, where Kathryn and I disembarked, at 4:00 in the morning. Poor Daddy had a meeting to go to at 6:30. We went north via Cedar City, so we bypassed the wreck site, so we don't know if the "curse" is still active if it ever existed. The only reason I call it a curse is because Daddy called it a jinx, and for some reason when I started this post I called it a curse instead of a jinx, and don't feel like going back and fixing it.

In summary, I think that this past week was a wonderful week. The fact that Wyatt Klaus Muhlestein was born and Elisabeth had a birthday during this time makes it even cooler.