McCall Madness!

The second week of our trip was spent in McCall, Idaho with my side of the family for a reunion. McCall is this fantastic little town on Payette Lake about 2 hours north of Boise. We have twice been lucky enough to rent this house with enough room for 35 people, two kitchens and its own private beach and dock. We are so bummed this is the last summer they will rent it out, though, since the couple who owns it will be living there full time when they come home from their mission in January.

Anyway, we spent the week getting to know each other again (it's been four years since our last reunion, and we are spread out all over the West) -- tubing and wakeboarding (I only went tubing thank you very much), fishing, doing puzzles, watching my brother Mark's slideshows of the day's activities :), playing water volleyball, and just sitting around on the beach/dock. We even found time for some spirituality with a Sunday meeting where Mom and Dad shared experiences from their mission, and a great testimony meeting around the campfire on our last night there. Although I spent much of the meeting wrestling Teslin and trying to keep her quiet, I was still able to feel the spirit so strongly and it was wonderful to hear testimonies from my parents, brothers and sisters, my aweseome in-laws and even a few of the nieces and nephews. We just don't get a chance to share those kinds of things with each other, so I'm so grateful we made the time to have a testimony meeting. I hate the end of a reunion because I feel so close to everyone by the end of the week and then that closeness gets lost so quickly when we get back to daily life. Especially the closeness to the nieces and nephews because who wants to text thier fuddy-duddy old auntie, or read her blog??

Anyway, sorry to get morose. I just want to say thanks to everyone who worked so hard to make this reunion happen. We all had so much going on and everyone pitched in to make it an awesome week! My poor brother Matt, whose Alaskan skin hadn't seen the sun in, well, maybe ever, got a serious sunburn early in the week. He developed blisters the size of golf balls on his shoulders and back. It was unreal.

Here are some pics of the fun!

My niece Jayme was so great with the little kids. She has so much energy, it was great to "let" her play with the kids and get them all run down (Jayme included).


Our last night there was Fourth of July. We were all geared up to watch the fireworks display the town put on in the middle of the lake. Alas, all we could see were some sparks behind the trees. I guess the shoreline turns more than we thought! But Trent and Josh (with help from Bridger and even Jarad) put on a show of their own. Here's Emma and Fisher watching the amazing display :).


We all converged on Caryn and Mark in Boise the night before we went to McCall. Emma and Payton picked up right where they left off four years ago with craziness in the pool. You can tell neither of them like having their picture taken!


Tubing buddies Gabe, Coleman and Fisher. These guys would have rode the tubes 24/7 if we had let them. They kept asking for more turns and more speed. Crazies.


Emma's fish. The guys found this great lake for family fishing about 10 minutes up the road from the house. The kids were pulling them out! And by the way, that isn't sunburn on Emma's face - it's colored zinc sunblock.


Fisher's fish.


Case's fish.


This is the twins asleep around 7pm on our last night there. They were just plum tuckered at the end of every day, but at the end of a week of nonstop fun, they just crashed. I felt the same way!