The HOTTEST Reunion Ever

At least that is what I billed it as. We had my family at our house last weekend for the annual Rowberry Reunion and I didn't think there would be any question about the weather here at the end of May. In fact, my brother Jim and his family stayed the whole week and did get to feel the 110 degree weather Monday and Tuesday.

But then the cold front moved in.

And it rained.

And we were supposed to swim all weekend.

Luckily the weather did nothing to ruin the fun weekend. It was so great to have everybody here. Granted, it is pretty busy when you have 17 people at your house (not overwhelming thanks to a mom who if I was preparing food, so was she. If I was cleaning up, so was she. Thanks mom!), but I would do it again it a heartbeat. I just love getting together with my family.

And I think even more, I love watching my kids with their cousins. Andrew was on cloud 9 the entire time. His cousins got tired of him way before he even thought that he might be tired of them. Granted, they all just had a great time playing together, but after a while it seemed that everybody else kind of would need a break...some alone/quiet time. Not Andrew. He would follow one or the other around saying their name over and over and inviting them to play trains with him or jump on the trampoline, or whatever else he thought they might like to do. Part of me felt for the cousin he was pestering, but the other part of me loved to see his enthusiasm for his cousins and I felt bad for him every time his enthusiasm was met with a closed door. Every once in a while he would get it and he would cry because his feelings were hurt. But most of the time he would just move on to somebody else.

Andrew was sitting on my lap today looking at pictures from the reunion on the computer. He said, "I want them all to come back!" "I want Grace, Maffew, Kate, and Gramma and Granpa Rowberry to come back to my house!" He had such a great time. And so did I.

Some of the highlights:Kids making a mess...I mean pizzas. They had a great time. You should have seen the piles of cheese!

Family bingo--we had a bingo card with faces of family members filling the squares. I pulled out facts about family members and we put m&ms on the face that matched the fact. The kids loved seeing their pictures. And loved the m&ms too.

Swimming--as cold and rainy as the weekend was, the kids still got in the pool every day. The hot tub helped, but those kids were still swimming in the cold pool too!

Singing in church together--growing up, we sang quite a bit as a family, but we haven't done much of that as we have gotten older. So, I arranged for us to sing in my ward's Sacrament Meeting. We sang an arrangement of I am a Child of God. The kids sang the first verse and then we all broke into parts and the kids came back in on the third verse. It was so fun to sing together as a family and boy did I love watching my little kids belt out I am a Child of God. Maybe I shouldn't have told Andrew to "sing loudly." For once he followed my directions exactly. Natalie, my little quiet one who never sang in a practice, got up there and belted the words as loud as her little voice would sing.

My dad was so cute with James.

Tie dye--the tie dye process was okay, but the "fun" part was all wearing the tie dyed shirts to the temple. It felt a little odd wearing tie dye to the temple. I was so glad my family got to see the Reflections of Christ exhibit at the visitor's center. It really is so amazing. If you haven't seen it yet, check it out here.


Bowling--we were having a great time when it got even better. Suddenly cosmic bowling kicked on for the last 15 minutes--white lights, disco music, disco balls, dancing.


Games--From silly games to Family Feud to Karaoke to Guitar Hero to Settlers of Catan to Mastermind to croquet.

These girls were so excited to match!

"Helping" to make the pizza dough