We have been excited for this weekend for a long time. Of course we were looking forward to the reunion, but we were even more excited to be staying all together in a VRBO that Devin found. It did not disappoint! The house was huge and a perfect size for all of us to stay together, it had an awesome balcony, picklyball courts, pool (which we didn't actually get to swim in, story later), and it was in a perfect location on the outskirts of St. George. Gosh, it was a blast and we're already trying to figure out when we can all go back just for the heck of it!! (and to get to do all of the things we didn't have time for this time).
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Every kid has to have a collection, right? Well it looks like Nolan's first collection is PEZ dispensers. He has 5 of them now, Darth Vader, Transformers, Mickey, Woody, and Transformers 2 and he loves them! Here he is starting out on our road trip with his blanket and PEZ 'ispensers' in his Star Wars lunch box and PEZ in his hands ☺
When we first arrived at the condo they had all of the cushions for the outdoor seating area stacked up in the hallway. Nolan and Branson had a hay day climbing on them. It was all fun and games until...Nolan fell down the stairs :(. I saw him go down and ran after him, praying he would stop before getting to the bottom because it was a hard tile floor. SO scary! Thank heavens he only went about half way down and only had a small cut on his knee to show for it. He was shaken up for about 10 seconds and then wanted to climb some more. Silly kid. Daddy took the pillows away immediately though, sorry bud, not worth you getting hurt.
If you look just to the right of the scaffolding in the middle of the photo you can see the condo my Uncle Robert and his family stayed in (the dark brown one). It was SO fun to be all together and have them just down the street!
The time has come that we've been waiting for for two years. These boys just love each other and are so excited to see each other. They're even starting to play together pretty well too.
Branson was pretty excited to see cousin Russ too.
Hanging out at the Texas Mathews condo.
Bruce, Rachel, and Madelyn loved all of the little babies and were so good with them! They were also super sweet to Nolan and played the "pushing game" with him haha. It's not really a game, basically Nolan just pushes them down to the ground. They were good sports and flew to the ground whenever Nolan pushed them. He absolutely LOVED it!!
Granky's cane is always fun to play with.
Branson climbing on Uncle Alan, just cause he's there haha.
Nolan stole Tyler's Ipad and was immediately popular with the other kids. Speaking of which, Tyler was Nolan's best friend almost immediately upon walking in the door because Nolan spotted his Ipad haha and Tyler let him play with it AND showed him a Star Wars game ☺
Playing on the huge balcony. Isn't this place the best?!
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Reunion time!
The reunion was at Robin Mathews Gubler's cabin in Pine Valley. She and my mom put in a TON of time and effort to make it happen and we are so grateful. A great time was had by all!!
The reunion was at Robin Mathews Gubler's cabin in Pine Valley. She and my mom put in a TON of time and effort to make it happen and we are so grateful. A great time was had by all!!
The reunion was for the families of my great grandparents, Benjamin Lynn and Esther Black Mathews, and their 11 children. My grandpa is in the back row, far right.
So I remember when looking at pictures, here's a glossary of all of the family colors.
Nolan had these guys wrapped around his little finger for quite awhile ☺
Preston and Devin put in a lot of time and effort to make this awesome photo wall! It was so much fun and really added a little something to the reunion. Lots of people enjoyed taking fun pictures behind it (and in front of it). Thanks guys! Also, thanks to BJ and Kirsten who hauled it up to the reunion ♥
I was joking with Justin that it was kind of nice that for one day, he and the boys were wearing MY name on their backs hehe ♥
Granky was pretty much a celebrity at the reunion. So many people from all of the different families came up to talk with him. I was so happy to even see a lot of young people wanting to talk to him and shake his hand ♥
Dasil and his brother-in-law, Carlisle Hulet.
I cannot get over how cute all the babies looked in their teeny Mathews shirts ♥
The three big boys eating lunch. Nolan of course ate mostly watermelon.
Mark and Mandy's crew
Paul and Logan
Granky with Robert and Suzie, and Marks crew
Justin, Tyler, Mallory, Uncle Alan, Dad/Gp Mathews/Uncle Mike
Thank heavens BJ brought this awesome tent so we could huddle under it for some shade. It was actually pretty darn good weather for most of the reunion, but when the sun was out it was nice to have somewhere to hide.
Photos of my grandpa and his siblings and parents. Granky is in the far right of this pic (too bad there's a glare).
Here's a better one. So handsome!
The picture in the middle left is of Granky's twin brother and sister, Paul and Pauline. I love it because as far as I know Preston and I are the only other set of b/g twins in the family.
I made the little family history booklets on the left. I think people liked them!
The Dasil G. Mathews group in attendance.
This is brother and sister Mathews, descendants of my great-grandpa Benjamin's brother. They are serving a family history mission in St. George so when they heard about the reunion they got special permission to come!! Sister Mathews loved holding Branson ♥
Dad and his awesome daughter-in-laws
Nolan was SO excited to talk Star Wars with Uncle BJ. Here he is making BJ kiss Darth Vader ☺
Rhett and his cars
And for Mark, anytime is a good time to read The Book of Mormon!
Beck, BJ, Suzie, and Mark
Filling out the family history booklet. Yay! Carlisle was just telling her a story and mentioned that Lynn and Esther lived in a tent when they were first married. Unknown to him, he had just given her a clue to one of the questions! Love it.
We were so happy (especially my mom since she was in charge) that everyone LOVED the shirts!!
We had a contest to come up with Mathews-isms -- "You know you're a Mathews if..." statements. Dad and Suzie's entries got the top prize. I think dad's was "You know you're a Mathews if they can't find your name in any database." (you always have to say, "1 T!" Hence the 1T on the shirt).
Beckett claiming his prize for the 'guess the number of candies in the jar' contest. The crazy thing is, no one even knew he entered!!
He was the most popular kid on the block after that ☺
My dad and his cute little middle-name sake!
Beck and Nolan in the under-12 sack race!
The adults sack race. Me, Preston, Mark, and Paul participated. Mark and I had planned to run a bit towards the middle to cut off some of the competition (we've run enough cross country to know that trick). The only problem was, we jumped the gun a little bit and as we were going back to the line everyone else went! Mark quickly turned around with the group and caught up fast, but I went all the way back. Needless to say, I was behind, but not last! Preston won, and Mark and Paul had to race again to break a tie for second.
We were impressed with Preston's 'getting-into-the-sack' skills. It's like he did it all in one motion instead of one leg then another! Impressed.
Mark won the tie breaker. I thought I got a picture of the race, but I guess not. Anyway, it was hilarious. Paul's plan was to grab all of the sacks and throw them so Mark was left stranded without one (I know, there's a trend here, we're all devious and maybe cheaters? haha). But...his plan backfired when Mark barely beat him to the sacks and already had his hand on a sack when Paul grabbed them all haha. So Paul fell and couldn't catch up. Good times!!
Here's Preston and Mark with their prizes. Basically, the Dasil G. Mathews family dominated well, everything ☺
Nolan really wanted to stick his feet in this little creek behind the cabin.
My second cousin, Ben Mathews' kids (in navy) were really sweet to the little ones and helped them get in and out of the stream.
Uncle Preston taking the boys on an adventure!
Three different families in this pic! Justin, Devin, Russ, Rhett, Will, Nolan, and Beck.
Nolan giving Granky 'bones.'
And of course, playing with his watch. Nolan has loved that watch since he was a baby ♥
The Mike and Dana Mathews family
Preston and Devin's fam
I love family reunions. I can just picture my great grandparents and their children smiling down on all of their posterity. During the reunion I kept looking around and thinking, what a legacy they (and other ancestors) have left and what an incredible posterity has followed them.
Some quotes from my family history booklet:
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The reunion was about 5-10 minutes from the site of the Mountain Meadows Massacre so I just had to go see it while I had the chance. I have wanted to visit the site for a long time, but it's not exactly right off of I-15, so I never made it out there. The height of my interest in the MMM was when the book titled Massacre at Mountain Meadows came out in 2008. I had just graduated from BYU where we had talked at length about the massacre in some of my classes, and I had recently started working as an intern with the Church History Dept. I had the opportunity to talk to many people that were involved in the books publication, I went to seminars and panel discussions on the topic, and was just generally interested. It's such a fascinating event to me, not because I’m proud of it, and certainly not because I condone what they did. But I think that I, like many others, wonder how otherwise decent men could have committed such a terrible and inexcusable atrocity against other human beings.
The Massacre at Mountain Meadows book cites "misunderstanding, misinformation, indecision, and personal vendettas" as a simplified summary of the reasons. But, like the book also says - nothing that the immigrants supposedly said or did, even if it were true, justified their deaths.
Anyway, it is a sad, tragic, and fascinating event and I was glad to have had the opportunity to see some of the monuments in the area.
First we went to a monument/lookout area.
The boys were asleep in the car (the needed it SO bad) so Justin and I had to take turns at each monument. Some of our Mathews cousins were also at one of the monuments with us.
A view of the valley where the Baker-Fancher party was camped and subsequently attacked.
At the same turnoff, we took a dirt road to the south west to the gravesite memorial. There was definitely a somber feeling at this site.
American flag along with an Arkansas flag, which is where the company was from.
Up UT-18 to the north were two more memorials. On the west side was one for the men and boys, on the east side was one for the women and children.
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Back at the condo
Branson and Logan were "fighting" over this water bottle for a good 10 minutes. One would grab it, then the other would grab it back. It was the cutest little fight I'll probably ever see haha.
Playing on the jungle gym..I mean Uncle BJ
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The only lame thing about the weekend was that there was a rain and lightening storm the evening after the reunion which meant we couldn't go swimming like we had looked forward to :(. Seriously, rain? In St. George?! In the summer?! Ugh. We were pretty disappointed, but no biggy. It just makes us want to come back soon!
Gp Mathews enjoying some snuggles from his two youngest grandsons ♥
...oh and there's Russ!
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On the way back to St. George from the reunion Justin and I were in awe of the beautiful Snow Canyon. We passed a lookout and decided we'd better check it out before we left. It was gorgeous!
Just before we left for home we went to lunch at Culver's. It was a little crazy trying to have lunch with 6 kids 4 and under, including 3 squirming babies that have a much longer reach than you'd expect. To make it harder I had a terrible headache, so I couldn't handle much. I think I was also just really tired because it's really hard for me to ever catch up on sleep, and I've been super stressed at work for the last few months so I just couldn't deal. But it was really a blessing in disguise because I was reminded of what an awesome family I have. They love me so much and hate to see me hurting in any way, even something small like that. You guys are the best! ♥
