Ten Tips for a Budget Family Reunion

Cousin's Club

(minus seven)

All twenty grandkids (plus their fourteen parents) are buzzing in and out of town this month, and that means a bunch of reunions. The fun is priceless, but can also get pricey.

I've discovered memories don't need to be expensive. Last Saturday's party-in-the-park (for 22 people) cost me under $20! Each family brought their own picnic, I furnished tablecloths, and the dollar store provided the entertainment:

Lars and Will

1. Funky plastic teeth for skits.

2. Jump rope (even the adults were jumping!)

Eliza and Jill duet

3. Two plastic microphones for an impromptu talent show: sixty seconds to prepare. There were songs, jokes, skills—we called out states and Chloe named the capitals; we called out states and Jacque named the teams. Scott did math problems in his head; Will climbed a tree. No practices or instruments necessary, and nobody was left out.

4. Critter hunt. (Again. $4 worth of plastic bugs has paid off big time.)

5. Squirt guns: Fill 'em up at the drinking fountain. Rule: You can't shoot at anybody who doesn't have a squirt gun.

Chloe and Lucy

6. Straw Relay: The teams passed gummy lifesavers with straws.

7. Paper Relay: Use the same straws. Suck up a piece of paper, run the course without dropping the paper—no hands. Repeat until one team finishes.

Jillian June (I think)

8. Soap on a rope: Carve ivory soap with plastic knives, and hang from a piece of string.

9. Flying High: Put together and fly wooden glider airplanes.

10. Glow-in-the-dark bracelet tag.

Family reunions don't have to be elaborate, painstaking or expensive. The preparation for this party was minimal—a group e-mail, thirty minutes in the dollar store, a bunch of cousins and a lifetime of memories.

Do you have any cheap, fun suggestions?

This post is part of a blog carnival hosted by Susan Adcox, About.com's Guide to Grandparents.

Camping With Kids

Hey Liza! Looking for fun?
The Oma kit has the makings for
Fire Power!

~Give each kid a magnifying glass.
~Gather round the cold campfire (or any rocks)
~Each kid makes a tiny pile of twigs and scraps for kindling.

~Position the magnifying glass to catch some rays.
~ Sing "Here Comes the Sun" whenever he peeks out from behind a cloud.
~Coax him with "You are my Sunshine."
~Repeat the magic chant: "Come on baby, light my fire . . ." whenever a ray appears.
~Direct the sun through the magnifying glass onto kindling you've lovingly put together.
~ Watch for smoke wisps above your piece of napkin.

"Hey, I'm thmokin, don't you think?"

~If you are a smokin-hot 2nd grader, that lucky old sun might shine for a second right through your magnifying glass.

~Finally, you scream giddily, "FIRE!!" For you, city slicker that you are, have created fire without a match.

Then, you sleep in the sunshine.

Tooting

I'm tooting my own horn!

I was inducted into The Mother Huddle.

Thanks Destri. You've re-jived me!

Family Ties

Chloe
(pictures by Scott)

One kid's relaxation is another kid's "What shall we do?"
Out comes an Oma kit:

Eleven kids, eleven balls of yarn (eleven different colors.)

Instructions:
Unroll your yarn to make a giant web.
It can't touch the ground or any other color, except to cross over.
The first person to run out of yarn wins.


Very ingenious, Emmie!


Now, rewind!


Luke's almost finished—
This prize better be good.

Tickets to a Mountain Mama concert?

"Too much of a good thing," said Sam.


And now, it's Opa's annual bubblegum contest!



Yeah, whatever.


Just put your lips together and blow.

Bubble boy.


Almost . . .



Perfect!

Make some family ties.

Grandma Shelly, Heffalump and Grandma Lizzie gave me great ideas for campout activities. Check them out!

Mountain Oma

Art by Lucille Patterson Marsh

Annie, of Annie's Song fame, told how she and her husband (John Deutschendorfer) spent a night camping in the Rockie Mountains with friends. Away from the city lights, they watched a meteor shower, and John penned the words, ♫ "I've seen it raining fire in the sky . . . folks around a campfire, everybody high . . . Rocky Mountain high . . ." ♫ He was John Denver when he sang it to us.

Although I've lived my whole life less than five miles from the mountain tops I've never thought of myself as an outdoor person. I don't like dirt, bugs, bees, buzzing, raccoons, rocks under my pillow or ashes in my hamburger bun. Natural is not a look I look good in. Bathrooms with spiders building webs and moths flitting in the corner are not where I want to go.

But I understand a Rocky Mountain high. I've got one! I'm packing for our annual 4th of July Campout, and I just calculated that I've been camping every summer (except four) since 1980! That's a lot of dirt under my fingernails. In a pinch I know I could pitch a tent, start a fire without matches, and dig a latrine, because I have. I've cooked a turkey in a pit, slept directly on the ground and hiked 26 miles pushing a handcart even though I was out-of-shape, old and cross.

These are the lows that contribute to the highs. Although there's dirt on the ground, the air is clean and crisp. It's quiet enough to hear a raccoon rustle in the bushes and a bee whirring in the wildflowers. After listening to wood crackling and loved ones laughing, their chatter soothes me enough that I don't care about the boulders beneath my shoulders.

Mountain kids wash up, 2008

I can't wait to unpack my Oma tent, and have a dozen little grands buzzing around my campsite. Maybe I've turned into a Mountain Mama after all!

Happy 4th of July!
(See you after the fireworks.)

Detective: Summit County, Utah

I married a detective. We're always looking for dead buildings,and the story of how they got that way. The cases are mysterious and the techniques are fascinating. For instance, there's a special kind of DNA to identify age: this broken-down old soul had personal, hand-made nails holding her together. (It's a little like having natural nails in an age of acrylic.)

At the autopsy, Dee modestly lifted up her floor boards, exposing private clues: old newspaper petticoats with dates like 1927. The tongue and groove herringbone boards, laid in specific patterns, were as time-specific as stocking seams.

He had to pronounce this old girl dead on the spot. Exposure, lack of fluids and no loving care had done her in. She collapsed right where she stood. Witnesses stood back and waited for help but she was old, gray and unbalanced. Her family run business dried up and blew away with the sheep industry, and she must have felt unnecessary like many folks do in old age. We paid our respects.

Dee attracts Ghosts and this week we're off to do some ghostbusting. Don't worry about me. I'll be with a history detective. I think of gathering history like gathering autumn leaves. We are finding the brightest examples of a former glory that beautified now barren places with life and growth. The people who created something from nothing, who raised huge families filled with hard working, inventive folks, while feeding vast numbers of citizens from the food they produced; these are the unsung heroes who built our country. Did they make any less of a contribution just because we don't know about them?

We've got our maps and our magnifying glasses and we'll bring home some news!

Photo Shoot in Midway, Utah

Getting Our Bearings
on the top of Memorial Hill

Mount Timpanogos from the back.

Drive straight South and you'll get to Provo Canyon. You'll never see it greener or more lush and beautiful. Wonder about the families who hiked up it 150 years ago,when there was no road, and a baby floated away down the river.

Look at all the canyons layered on top of each other. Hike one to get over to Sundance, another to get over to Park City, or go over Guardsman's Pass to end up at Brighton. Our valleys aren't that far apart if you go over the top. Dee's new book will name all the canyons, tell who they're named after, and the spectacular story that earned them that honor.

So many lives were lived in this peaceful valley. Indian raids, military containment, sons killed in war. Stand-offs, uprisings, or freezing winters didn't discourage early artists, musicians, photographers, teachers. Monuments to them are scattered all around town (in the form of homes, statues, businesses, ranches, and families.) Even the mountain peaks and canyons bear their names.

When you're halfway to heaven in these moutain valleys, you can hear those already gone still telling their stories. Anyway, Dee can. He found some new ones today.

Link here to see the dangerous adventurers of
a mild-mannered historian!

We're off gathering history this week!

I'll send you a postcard!

Family Reunions

Illustration by Christopher Canyon

While planning family reunions,
I found myself in a favorite memory.

"Sing The Teddy Bear Song!" we coaxed Dad and Uncle Mel. It was a late August night, and the moon was out. I was about nine, lazing on one of my grama's quilts with all my little cousins around me, looking up at the stars, while Aunt Ree strummed her ukulele, and the moths buzzed around the porch light. Family picnics always ended this way.

Grampa's fresh peaches had been cranked into ice-cream. In the cellar under the back porch, the freezer with the rock salt and ice were covered with newspapers and left to finish the process. The corn-on-the-cob dripped with butter, the cucumbers brined in vinegar, and the onions scented the air. Raspberries were eaten right off the bushes, and very sour, green apples begged for salt.

There was a big brick stove at the back of the yard where the hamburgers sizzled, waiting to be dressed with homegrown tomatoes. Watermelon rind pickles, and chili sauce were on the table along with an empty dish of olives. We kids scampered around the yard, with a black olive stuck on every finger. We almost fell into the goldfish pond, hid behind the hollyhock bushes, and rolled down the sloping lawn, while our moms hustled the food outside and in, and our dads re-hashed the ballgame. It wasn't West Virginia, but it was almost heaven.

The best part was after it started to get dark. Grama and Grampa harmonized as they sang Shine on Harvest Moon, and we all joined in on Are You From Dixie (for some reason I thought I was from Dixie when we sang that song!) Our sing-a-long was a crazy variety, including Little Grass Shack, Edelweiss, When the Saints Go Marching In, and Bill Groggan's Goat. The favorites, however, were totally ours. My dad and his brother used to combine lines from lots of songs and create medleys. The Teddy-Bear Song started out with "Honey won't you look into your baby's eyes..." rolled into "Sweet Adeline was singing down in Dixieland..." and somewhere in the middle ran into this ditty:

Well, I had a little teddy bear that had no tail,
Just a little patch of hair.
The sun came out and burnt the hair away,
And left the little teddy bare.

The song eventually ended with "Mister Mo-on, bright and shiny moon, please shine down on, talk about your shinin', please shine down on me."

Babies and toddlers fell asleep as we crooned to that moon. As the oldest grandchild I prided myself on staying awake 'til the very last song. I even knew all the words.

This is one of the memories I love to visit. In my heaven, we get to check out the DVD of our life, and do some kind of virtual reality time-travel to relive our most cherished moments. You'll find me almost dreaming on grama's quilt, listening to my dad sing.

This is what we looked like back in the day.
(I'm the cute one in the hair net.)

*Homework:

~Write about a time in your life that you would visit if you could.

Love Letters

Photo by Stie

Me: I think you're starting to rub off on me.

Dee: That's good. I've been trying to lose some weight.

Seeing Clearly

Emmie and Jake, 2008

"Go bold!" he said. "Use your glasses to add some pizazz." I met Rudy at Lenscrafters today. He followed me around with a little box, collecting the frames I liked and commenting on life in general:

1. "When men try on frames they look in the mirror and see the frame. Women look in the mirror and immediately fix their hair. Then they notice the frame."
   
2. "Your eyes feel dry because we're in a desert. And that's why our skiing is so great."
   
3. "I lived in Wisconsin but people there are grouchy all winter. I like a place where people wear flip-flops in the snow."
   
4. "I love kids who put their whole face into an ice-cream cone like that, even though I'll have to wipe down the door when they leave."
5. "You look really young to me, but in case you have AARP I can give you a discount."

Rudy wiped off the smudges and adjusted my new glasses, but my vision had already been improved. In case your life is a little blurry right now, I'll share my new prescription:

1. When I focus on myself I miss the whole point.
2. If I turn my problem around, it might be a blessing.
3. My attitude affects other people.
4. I'm happier when I find joy in the joy of others.
5. Getting old has lots of perks.

See what I mean?

("I see," said the blind man.
And he picked up his hammer and saw.)

*Homework:

~Are you being near-sighted? Think about something that's making you unhappy lately: worry, jealousy, fear, pain, sadness, loneliness, whatever. Would one of the truths listed above change your point of view?

~Try it and write about the results.

Art Form

—Somebody's blog.
(Please claim it if it's yours.)

Fear of Guns

The shoot-out.

Saturday I faced a fear.

I'm terrified of guns. Dee grew up with them, hunting pheasants and rabbits when he was just a kid. He took our sons duck hunting and target shooting even though my stomach would be tied in knots the whole time they were gone. "Boys need to learn how to shoot," he told me. (I've realized mothers and fathers are different, and that it's supposed to be that way.)

All our kids remember a major melt-down I had at the Holladay Gun Club twenty-five years ago. After an adventurous day in the mountains (the kids climbed rocks, built fires without matches, used ropes to cross the river on a log) Dee announced a surprise grand finale. Our Heroes (ages 14-3) cheered with anticipation as he drove up the hill to a shooting range. I practically threw up. Shots rang out as we pulled into the parking lot. I freaked out and refused to participate. As Marta and I sat in the car crying, my indignation and imagination ran wild—fear took over.

Oma takes aim at her fear.

As fears sometimes do, this one became irrational. Gun safety was a concept lost on me. I've assumed guns spontaneously go off and shoot people; that shooting ranges are filled with drunk militia weirdos in camouflage; that bullets fly randomly through the air in all directions constantly. Refusing to even consider a different scenario, I let it become a phobia.

Safety rules.

So now I'm ghost-writing a western novel. JJ, the star of the book, is a cracker-jack shot even though he's only twelve. This seemed preposterous to me. But Dee was like that, and my son-in-law Dan was, too. Even my own sons and grandsons have been familiar with guns by age twelve, in spite of my anxieties. In the old west most little boys learned to hunt and handle firearms when they were tall enough to hold a .22.

Colts, Winchesters, bullets and calibers—Dan has been my go-to guy, guiding me through the mysteries of 1870's hardware for the book. So he decided I needed a research trip. JJ can only be as knowledgeable as I am.

Dan planned our outing as my Father's Day gift to him. Because he's such a fabulous father of such a darling grandson, I couldn't say no. But I was scared silly.

Opa and Oma on the range.

Target shooting was so different than I'd imagined. No self-exploding bazookas, no crazies— everybody knew and followed the rules. Except me. I shot at another guy's target which is a major faux pas. (He was very nice about it, though.)

And there was an incident during the ceasefire. Every fifteen minutes there's an announcement and all shooting stops. Guns are unloaded and placed on the tables and everyone steps back behind a red line. Then, when it's totally safe, they announce that you can go check your targets. Shooters stay behind the red line until they announce the range is hot, and then you go back to your stations. Anyway, during the ceasefire, I forgot, crossed the line and started to load my gun. "MA'AM! STEP AWAY FROM YOUR WEAPON!"

My chaperones were very patient and assured the others they'd watch me closer.

Right on target.

A little experience shot my fear to smithereens.

Hot Dog!

The Heroes are heading to the woods!

As usual, I need your suggestions!

I like to have Oma Activities: games, crafts, books—stuff I'm prepared to do quite simply right there in the woods. In past years we've carved soaps on a rope, made rubbings of leaves, boondoggled, explored with magnifying glasses, had a contest to start a fire without a match, strung beads, etc. We need New and Exciting as well as Traditional and Expected.

They're on their way!!

I need activities for grade-school/pre-school age kids.

I'd ♥ your ideas in these categories:

1. Books to read out loud (short enough to read in a couple of hours) What's your very favorite?
   
2. Spooky stories to tell by the fire. Where can I find them?
   
3. Crafts that aren't too involved
4. Games for around the campfire (Not much movement)
   
5. Other games/treasure hunts/activities (Lots of movement)
   
6. Out of the ordinary snacks/meal suggestions.

PLEASE leave your ideas in the comment section. While you're there, collect some to use for your own family get-togethers this summer!

I'll share any of my plans!

Log Jam

I come from a family of lumberjacks.

Edward Bagley and his ten sons (he also had two daughters) lived in New Brunswick, Canada in 1842, and ran a lumber business on the St Johns River. During the freezing winter months, they chopped trees and sawed logs.



The snow made it easier to slide loaded sleighs and pile the logs along the shoreline while they waited for the ice to melt.

When the ice was gone and the rivers were flowing, the logs were sent down flumes (wooden troughs with a stream of water flowing down them) and chutes (troughs that were greased) which were built on the mountainsides. Then they were dumped in the river to be taken to sawmills downstream.



Almost every year the logs would pile up and jam in a sharp bend of the river, forming dams so thick they stopped the flow of water and created floods. The Bagley men walked across the slick, rolling logs, prying them apart with tools called peevees. Recognized by their red wool flannel undershirts, the lumberjacks scurried from log to log over the cold water, even eating lunch while they worked to turn them in the right direction.



If a man fell in the water, but didn't lose his hat, it was not counted as a fall; a drowned man's peevee was considered jinxed so they just let it float away.



River driving was dangerous work and men who fell were often drowned or crushed between logs. Edward's son David was 25 when he "came by his death driving logs in the narrows on Gibson Mill Stream, May 4, 1865."

Edward and his family joined the Mormon church in 1844. Ten years later his son John (who was just 18) set off from New Brunswick on his own, joined a group of pioneers and crossed the plains to Utah. When he arrived, he continued working as a lumberjack in Big Cottonwood Canyon, near Brighton. This story is told in a local history:

"Many Draperville residents were among 3,000 Saints celebrating the tenth anniversary of the arrival of the pioneers in the Salt Lake Valley. It was at Silver Lake in Big Cottonwood Canyon.

"On July 24th, 1857, the flag was unfurled from the summit of the highest peak. Prayer was offered and the singing and cannon roared. The juvenile rifle corps performed an excellent drill. Governor Brigham Young asked John Bagley to climb to the top of a tall pine tree and top it to mount a flag. So John climbed the tree, cut it off flat, and stood on his head on the top of the tree to show his courage and agility. In New Brunswick, where John Bagley was from, when a pine tree was cut down, the lumberjacks would top it for a log. Then if you were especially skilled, you would stand on your head on top of the topped tree. And, that is what John Bagley did."

—From: A HISTORY OF SIVOGAH TO DRAPER CITY 1849—1977
Volume Two of History of Draper, Utah

My brain has a log jam. Over the past few months I've crammed it full of random information for my novel: the flora and fauna of Texas, how you load a Colt .44, western towns in 1872, roasting a venison steak, grasshopper bounties, prairie fires and soiled doves. Now I need it to flow down the flume and out of my fingertips, but it's all dammed up. Dammed, I say!

I'm digging deep into my roots to find the lumberjack genes. Maybe if I put on a red shirt I'll be able to get things unjammed and flowing in the right direction.


*Homework:
~Write about a log jam in your life. Now make a list of five ways to get things going in the right direction. Make plans to do the first one.