Back-blogging: Hone Family Reunion

Over Labor Day weekend this year, we went camping with the whole Hone family (except for Wade, who couldn't make it -- we missed you, Wade!). It was a great trip, and we all had a really fun time being together. We got a great group camp site in Southern Idaho, with picnic tables, fire pits, tent sites, an amphitheater and lots of space to roam and play. 

There was lots of sitting around the fire, chatting and catching up...

And the little girls all had a great time playing with costumes from Grandma Karen's dress-up box. They even made up some dances and skits that they practiced and performed for us...

Oh, and actually, Piglet, in the above pic, is little *not* a girl, but he loved the dress-ups, too. ;)

This pic of me at the picnic tables is to remind me to tell about the bees... lots of bees this trip. They would come out every time we pulled the food out for a meal. And they were pretty annoying!! We had three people get stung -- BJ, Grandma Karen, and HP, poor things! We took turns swatting them, spraying repellent, doing battle. No fun!

We had a picnic lunch on Saturday, but we didn't find a very good place to eat it, unfortunately. So we all sat by the side of the road in a tiny piece of shade, kind of funny. But hey, at least there were no bees, eh? ;)

Natalie was our little fashion queen for the picnic. She insisted on wearing her swimming suit around her neck for most of the day, funny girl. The hat and glasses completed the ensemble! ha!

We decided to visit the famous Minnetonka Cave, near Bear Lake. A few of my brothers had been before and recommended it. Here's our group, about to go in...

Waiting for our tour to start...

It was a really impressive cave, actually! Three quarters of a mile long, with some amazing formations -- huge stalactites and stalagmites.

It also had 440 stairs inside the cave, leading to and from each cavern. We walked all the way in and all the way out, which meant we climbed or descended 880 steps! Kinda rough on Natalie, who ended up being carried by Brian lots of the time. My parents opted not to go on that adventure, and they didn't even know about the stairs... We missed them, but maybe it was better for them to save their energy??

After, we stopped at Bear Lake's drive-in restaurant for some delicious fresh raspberry shakes. Mmm.... good!!

Funny thing, the kids seemed more interested in the hammock behind the drive-in, than they were in the shakes. Oh well... more ice cream for me! ha!

Not pictured, right after our shakes, we decided to drive down by the lake, like so many people were doing. And... we got our van stuck in the sand. Badly. Our kids were pretty unnerved, and Brian and I weren't sure what to do. We tried digging out, then tried putting some boards down, then some blankets... Finally Brian just had to go ask some guys with a big monster truck if they could come pull us out. In the meantime, the kids had a BLAST digging in the sand, and Nat got to "use the facilities" in the bushes, which she thought was pretty exciting. Chalk it up to an adventure, I guess? And no more sand cruising for us until we upgrade to an SUV!

Here's Brian, messing with the settings on the camera... and messing with one of the tutus from the dress-up box, I guess? ha!

We had a little church meeting at the amphitheater on Sunday, and later, the kids did a little program for us, with all their songs, dances and skits...

These two seemed to be having a "who can get the dirtiest" contest!! They both deserved blue ribbons!!

Some of the audience, at the amphitheater...

More performers...

One cute thing, Samantha told me all the cousins had formed a "Cousins Club." The oldest cousins were part of the First Council of the Cousins, then the middle-aged cousins (including Sam) formed the Second Council of the Cousins, and the little kids were the Third Council of the Cousins. At one point, Brian and I were picking up a bunch of empty pop cans the kids had left laying around camp. Samantha saw them and said, "Oh! those belonged to the First Council of the Cousins! They should be cleaning those up!" We just thought it was cute that they had their own club. :)

The last day of our trip, it started raining right during breakfast. (And I took it personally, because it was mine and Brian's delicious breakfast-burritos breakfast!! how rude, dumb rain!) We all went running to my parents' trailer... all 25 of us crowding in to eat our breakfast in standing-room-only. Ah... it made a memory, I guess. And... it didn't let up until we were all packed up and ready to head home, with wet tents, wet bags, etc. Oh well!

Grandma Karen was extra nice and let all 15 grandkids stay in the trailer playing games and eating treats while the grown-ups packed up and cleaned the campsite. Fun times, huh?

It really was a fun, memorable, relaxing trip. We all went home happy and filthy, and we can't wait to do it all again next year! :)