JULY BRINGS OUR MINI REUNION AFTER OUR OREGON REUNION IS CANCELED

While we were on our cruise in the Baltic, we got a message from Worldmark that they may not be able to honor our reservations for 5 condominium units at the resort in Redmond, Oregon (close to Bend, Oregon). We have had those booked for over a year and was about to start making plans for our family reunion to be held there. In talking with Worldmark, we came to find out that, because of permit issues, their construction remodels were delayed and so many units would not be available for summer occupancy. Our reservations couldn't be guaranteed. About the first of June, we decided to cancel the Oregon reunion. We needed all 5 units and didn't want our family to make the trek there and find we couldn't all be accommodated. Instead, we told anyone who wanted to come to Utah during that same week, that we would plan some activities for the whole family to do. Ryan's family was the only one who could make the trip so we planned a Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday mini reunion.


The activities started on Wednesday, July 11. We met at Jon and Mindi's home to swim and have a barbecue. Everyone arrived around 3 in the afternoon and had a great time in the pool as it was a hot day. After eating hamburgers and hot dogs, shooting some hoops, and visiting, we decided to go to a yogurt place for some frozen yogurt before the 'out of towners' and ourselves traveled up to Heber for the night. 

Alice would stay out of the
pool area

 

 At the

frozen

yogurt

place


YUMMY!

Sitting on the steps of the
Wilkenson Center
to show off the newly minted t-shirts.

The next day, we met at BYU for a video scavenger hunt. Katie and Ryan came up with the teams and the places on campus where each group had to take a video. Before beginning the hunt, Paul and I were told to stay behind for a minute. When the group finally let us come to them, they had put special T-shirts on each of the grandchildren. They said on the front -"Millar Family Reunion and Shirts CANCELLED!!" On the back was what became our reunion theme - "Go With The Flow" 2018. So fitting. Jon and Mindi and family had bought the shirts the night before after we all left and then wrote on them in the morning. A special surprise.

'Go with the Flow' - a perfect theme for this year's reunion

It was hot and the teenagers complained a lot, but the video scavenger hunt was fun. We had to take videos of someone swaying like the pendulum in the Eyring Science center and singing Old MacDonald Had A Farm in front of the oldest building on campus, the Maser building. Other videos included eating ice cream from the BYU creamery, climbing the stairs in the Tanner business building, and racing around the track in the Smith field House. We were given a time to be back and all three groups made it just in time. We showed the videos that night and it was decided Jon, Ryan and Dad's group won hands down. Not only did they go to the actual creamery on 9th East (a long walk, for sure) but their videos were hilarious, thanks to Jon videography.

In front of the Maser Building

Aria waiting patiently while
the rest of the group runs down
to the Smith Fieldhouse

Sitting with Cosmos

Our group was the first group back with 10 minutes to spare..
but we didn't go all the way to the BYU Creamery
but, instead, opted to buy BYU Creamery ice cream at the Cougar Eat.

We were hot and tired by the end and ready for pizza at the Pizza Factory. After lunch, we went to Provo Beach in the Riverwoods Shopping center. Provo Beach is a place with lots of things to do - an overhead ropes obstacle course, bowling, laser tag, croquet, arcade games, and surfing in the surf machine. We bought day passes for everyone and an extra ten dollar pass for those who wanted to try their hand at surfing. It turned out that only Jon's family did the surfing but everyone kept very busy and had lots of fun. It was a tri-tip dinner up in Heber later that night

Olivia finally made it standing up

Clark having sooo much fun!!

Jaron was the first to surf standing up

Never have seen Gavin smile so much

Jaron helping Carly stand up

Jaiden loving this activity

A Merry Go Round for Nathan

He loved bowling

The overhead ropes course group
getting ready to  brave the heights

Jaiden

Carly

Olivia

Aubrey

Julia

And then there was laser tag... so much fun
Nathan really got into to shooting everyone.

Friday was a laid back day. It was decided to have lunch at our home (deli sandwiches) and then go to Heber's aquatic center to swim for the afternoon. Swimming only lasted a couple of hours so afterward everyone came back to our home to hang out except for Braydon and Clark who wanted to go shoot hoops at the Heber Recreation Center. We ate dinner that evening and soon it was time to say good bye. Olivia and Carli spent the night so they could go with us to the temple, the next day, and help babysit Todd and Kailee's girls while we attended Kailee's sister's wedding.

Of course we had to sneak in a trip to Dairy Keen

Everyone loves Dairy Keen

Cam and Kara's big day

Saturday was a day of driving to Provo twice. We took Julia, Olivia and Carli to the Provo City Temple, with Katie following us so she could help the girls babysit. We attended Kara and Cam's wedding in the temple which was beautiful. The sealer was a distant cousin of mine, the son of LeGrand Richards, my great uncle. He talked about the Provo City temple and how it came to be a temple. When the tabernacle burned down he was the stake president over the tabernacle. He was devastated, of course, but reminded us that we only see the small picture while the Lord sees an eternal vision. He came to realize that the Lord had other plans for the tabernacle - a redesigning into a temple of the Lord. He related it to our lives and how Heavenly Father sees our potential, just as he saw the potential of the tabernacle. We need to let him redesign us into what he sees as our eternal potential. A beautiful message for all of us.

At the temple loving
their time with Avery

Aria fell asleep
soon after Todd and Kailee
left her.

 

Beautiful Couple

We returned home, rested, went to dinner at Cafe Rio with Ryan's family and Carli and Olivia. After dinner Carli and Olivia drove with us back down the canyon to Todd and Kailee's to attend the reception for Kara and Cam. It was held in their backyard. Todd and Kailee had worked so hard making everything beautiful - the yard and the decorations. We were glad we had made the effort to attend both the wedding and the reception as it meant a lot to Kara as well and Kailee's parents. Olivia and Carli were such a big help to Todd and Kailee, watching the children and helping refill the food tables, that they got permission to stay longer. Todd drove them home after all the festivities were over.

Beautiful yard for a reception

Darling Avery

It was another trip to the other side of the mountain Sunday. We traveled to Lehi to attend Todd and Kailee's sacrament meeting where they blessed little Avery. Todd gave her a beautiful blessing and, afterward, we all went to their home for a lunch. I brought fold over rolls, mustard sauce, and desserts for the crowd. We had ham and rolls and all the trimmings. Needless to say, Todd and Kailee were exhausted having hosted a reception and a luncheon at their home within a 24 hour period. It all turned out beautiful,though.

Jon and Mindi's boys joined us for lunch at Todd and Kailee's later

Beautiful Family

Ryan had left early Sunday morning with Nathan and a vomiting Grace. Too Sad. He made it to Medford by early evening with Grace only vomiting a couple more time. He was glad to get home and that Grace hadn't vomited all the way home. Katie, Aubrey and Julia stayed another week...... Katie to make a quilt for Grace, Julia for her 12 year old birthday time with Grandma and Grandpa, and Aubrey to attend a BYU Volleyball camp.

Such a hard choice

Monday, the five of us girls traveled again to Provo. Julia and I went to the fabric store while Katie took Aubrey and a friend to BYU to get her all set for the volleyball camp. Julia and I spent at least an hour and a half trying to decide what fabric combinations would make a special quilt for Julia. She had a bit of a hard time making up her mind but after putting several possible color combinations together, Julia finally narrowed it down to two - coral with turquoise  or coral with a navy blue. She wanted me to decide for her but I told her I liked both of them. When she finally picked the coral and navy, I had to admit to her that it was my favorite of all the combinations we had set out. Katie met us soon after and we went to lunch at Olive Garden and then home to start Julia's quilt.

The finished product

Julia even made a matching
quilt for her American
Doll

Seashell animals

When we weren't working on the quilt, Julia wanted to do crafts. She started with duct tape and then moved to string and bead bracelets. When the quilt was finished, we spent the last day doing seashell animals. I had found some ideas for these on the Internet and Julia fell in love with them. She wanted to make something for all her cousins and brother and sisters.

On Thursday, Katie picked up Aubrey and then met Julia and ourselves at P.F. Chang's for an early dinner. We loved all our choices for dinner but had lots to take home as we couldn't finish all we had ordered. Katie took Aubrey back to Heber and we took Julia to the Hale Family Theater in Orem to see the musical production of Annie. It was a great show and Julia seemed to really enjoy it. Early Saturday morning, we took them all to the airport for an 8:00 a.m. flight. They were supposed to be home in Medford by 2:00 in the afternoon but when they got to Seattle and boarded the plane to take them on the 45 minute flight to Medford, Julia became very uneasy about it as the plane was a small one. Much to Aubrey's dismay, they got off the plane, rented a car, and proceeded to drive 8 hours to Medford. It actually took them more like 10 hours due to traffic and road construction. Needless to say, we were happy when they arrived home safely.

A note about Charlotte: We got a call from Andrea on Friday while Katie and the girls were still here. She called to tell us that Charlotte would be coming home from her mission. She was having some pretty severe reactions to the medication she was taking for anxiety and the mission president, as well as Andrea and Charlotte, knew she needed to come home. She was able to serve a total of 4 months which she knows is all the Lord required of her. She made a valiant effort to serve him under very hard circumstances. She will be blessed for her even trying under severe odds. Our prayers are for her continually that she can make the adjustment of being back home and that she can get her medications squared away. It will be off to school for her after she has been home long enough to make sure she can either function without the medication or find one that doesn't have the adverse effects on her body. She bore a powerful testimony on Facebook once she was home. We loved it when she said, "I have faith in God's plan. How grateful I am that God allows us to go through difficult things so that we can become who he needs us to be. I have no doubt that someday everything will make perfect sense. What a wonderful day to look forward to." We love you Charlotte.

....with her dad

At the airport...

Paul has been totally involved in setting up the ministering companionships within the Elder's quorum and making the assignments of families to those companionships. It's taken many meetings with his presidency, the Relief Society President, and the Bishopric to get it finalized but it's done now. This past week, he and his presidency have been calling each brother to give them their assignments. As a followup to all this, the Bishop asked him and the Relief Society President, Sister Bell, to put on the 5th Sunday discussion during the last hour of the block. He wanted them to cover the whats and hows of ministering. The Bishop wanted them to be very specific as to how ministering differs from home and visiting teaching and how we can all be the best ministering members possible. There was lots of good discussion and everyone left with a better understanding of what is expected and, hopefully, a greater motivation to minister as the Lord would.

As to ministering, we've had the opportunity to help two different people move into homes in our ward. As the Elder's Quorum president, Paul gets the requests for assistance and, of course, assigns ourselves to help. We are grateful that so many in our ward respond to these calls for help. We have a great ward.

One of two trucks unloaded

We ended our month with a delightful visit with Mitch and Michelle Davis, our former neighbors. We hadn't seen for months and decided to call them to see if we could stop by their home as we had errands to run on that side of the mountain. We were so glad to see them and their new home. We do miss them.

And then there's Aria and Avery:




One day before everyone came for the reunion, we went down to help Todd and Kailee in their yard to help get it ready for the reception. They treated us to lunch afterward. We went to In 'n Out for hamburgers and fries. Aria loved the stickers given to her. Instead of putting them on the paper provided, she put them all over herself. Darling.






A couple of Sundays ago, Aria discovered the old Hippity Hops our children used to play on. Without being shown how to use them, she straddled it and began to hop around. It became a favorite plaything for a while.







That same Sunday she found the lion sun visor upstairs in the costume box. She wanted Todd to put it on before she would. As she went downstairs with it on, Paul said, 'Be careful of the lion." She got all scared not realizing he was referring to her with the lion visor on. Too cute






Grandpa gets a kick out of getting Avery to smile at him
..........and so does Aria.

Just a cute picture of Avery