Reunion

The last of our vacation was the Bright Family Reunion. We love this reunion. We've been camping every year for 25-30 years now. We are usually at Willow Flats near Preston, Idaho, or Malibu Campground in Logan Canyon. Lately, we have been in Logan canyon to make it easier for the older generation.

Each of the original families used to cycle through and take a turn planning the reunion. In the last 5 years or so my generation has been doing it more. My Wiser cousins have been doing it for the last 3-4 years and we always look forward to their Dutch oven cooking. This year it was decided that my parents will book the campsite every year, the Wiser boys will cook the community meal, the rest of us will add potluck items for that meal and take turns mailing out info about the reunion. Everyone was happy that way. They like to cook and the rest of us like to eat.

Three of the Wiser boys...Sherwin, Doug and Anthony

This was the main cook this year...Darrel Wiser

There are 9 Wiser boys and they have 2 sisters. Love them all.

Here's a couple recipes:

Meat marinade

1 1/2 cup vegetable oil

3/4 cup soy sauce

1/2 cup lemon juice

1/4 cup Worcestershire Sauce

2 tsp dry mustard

2 1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp pepper

1 1/2 tsp parsley

2 cloves garlic, crushed

Combine all ingredients. Let meat marinade at least 2 hours. Good also for fresh vegetable shish-kabobs. Cook meat on the grill.

Dutch oven potatoes

1 pound bacon or sausage

1 onion, chopped

1 can cream of chicken soup

3-4 pounds potatoes

Brown meat in 12 inch dutch oven. Remove meat and some of the grease if it is too much. Saute onion in the remaining grease. Add meat, soup and potatoes. Stir. My cousin didn't mention adding water, but now that I've tried it I would recommend adding some. Cover with dutch oven lid and bake for about 45 minutes depending on amount of heat. When the potatoes are almost done sprinkle with 2 cups grated cheddar cheese, cover again and finish baking.

Apple Chop Suey

This recipe was made by the Wiser boys' mother (my aunt). She baked it in a 9 x 13 pan in the oven. They have started doing it in the Dutch oven every Sunday after breakfast as the reunion ends.

1 cup flour

1 cup sugar

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp cinnamon

1 egg

4-6 granny smith apples, cored and sliced

Mix all ingredients together and pour in Dutch oven. Bake until done. Serve with whip cream.

Saturday we spent hiking some more and going to Bear Lake. I have wanted to hike to the wind caves for several years now, but didn't think I was in shape enough before now. This year was my year to reach that goal. It was a 4 mile round trip and quite steep. It raised 900 feet in 1.3 miles.

James and Hannah at the start

Tom on the trail

James, Arie, Garrison, Hannah and me

The wind cave!

James

A very impressive view

This one is cool, too.

The neatest thing happened while we were in the wind cave. We had been hiking in the vicinity of a young Hispanic family. All the way up they would pass us and then we would pass them along the trail. Finally, after exploring the cave a bit I sat down near them and started talking to them. I asked, "Where are you from?"

They said, "Honduras."

I told them I had lived in Honduras for 16 months. Then I asked what part of Honduras they were from.

"Catacamas...It's in Olancho."

Me: "I lived in Catacamas!"

I told them how long I had lived there and when. They asked why I had been there and who some of the people were that I remembered. I told them I had been a missionary.

The father said, "My uncle is Mormon. Did you know Antonio Caceres?"

"Yes! I did know them. They had a daughter named Martha, right?"

The world is so small. There we were sitting on the mountain in Logan canyon talking to the nephew of someone I knew while on my mission in Honduras. Wild!

At Bear Lake

Total miles hiked during our vacation--15!

Btw! Look at the picture of me and the kids on the hike. Notice the shirt I'm wearing. Then look at the pictures in our slide show. Same shirt...sure fits differently now!

Reunion

Every year we go to the Bright Family Reunion. It is the one reunion we look forward to, and actually the only one we attend every year. This reunion is for the decendents of Hazen Wesley and Leah Merrill Bright. Their photos are the first two photos on the slide show above.

For decades we have been meeting one weekend a year and camping for a couple nights. The two most common locations for this reunion is Willow Flats Campground near Preston, Idaho, and the Malibu Campground in Logan Canyon.

Every year the group gets bigger and bigger. Some people are campers like us and others only come for Saturday and go home after dinner. It works no matter what you decide to do. When everyone is there the parking lot is completely packed. It's a challenge to find a parking space sometimes when you're the last ones to arrive! This year, for the first time, we were FIRST to arrive.

After we said goodbye to the Grubers at the Sunrise Campground, we headed into Logan for Linda to get online, to pick up a "few" groceries, and to wait out the storm. When we saw a break in the clouds we headed to the campground and set up camp. Later we returned to Logan for some rainy day activities.

First we visited the Logan temple grounds. My great great grandpa was the first Logan temple president, and my grandparents on my mom's side worked as officiaters there for several years. Grandpa was the only officiater over the age of 90 working at the temple. Grandma and Grandpa Housley's photos are also in the slide show above.



Later in the afternoon we found a cheap movie theater and watched a movie.



Logan Temple in the evening
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We camped in the Malibu Campground Wednesday and Thursday nights. Then it was time to move to the group site for the reunion. We just picked up the tents and walked them to the group site.








Moving the small stuff...



Hanging the tarp...again...







After the work was done, the kids tried drinking from the thermos without a cup.

Then we waited for people to arrive...

There's a baby moose in our camp!

This photo sums up Saturday...

My cousin, Sherwin saying, "BRRRR, IT'S COLD!"

It rained ALL day!

The afghan I made for the raffle

The doily I tatted for the raffle

I also knitted some crazy socks, but didn't get photos of them.

During the day Saturday, Tom decided he needed to go somewhere for some excitement (and warmth). I laughed to see 4 of my cousins directing him out of the parking lot!

Sunday we packed up to come home. This is a view of the temple as we came out of the canyon. Every time we visited our grandparents in Cache Valley while we were growing up my sister asked mom and dad to drive around the Logan temple on our way to their house (and on the way home, too).

There was one other memorable story from this trip. On the second day, Shellece's camera battery was dead so Linda and I kept taking photos and planned to send them to Shellece later. We mentioned that we should download them onto Linda's laptop at the end of our time together...that didn't happen. On Friday I was messing around with my camera and accidentally reformatted my memory card. Later that evening Linda was messing around with her camera and erased all her photos.

So how did we get so many photos?! I came home, found a recovery program I could use for free and managed to save most of the photos on Linda's card. Mine was hopeless. At least we ended up with a good selection of photos anyway! But lesson learned...never mess with your camera until all the photos are downloaded!

Camping with the Grubers

This was our third year camping with the Grubers. They introduced us to Idaho by taking us to Baumgartener Campground and Grandjean Campground. So, this year since they moved to Utah we decided to introduce them to Utah just a bit, and we went to Bear Lake.

We didn't know we were going to be camping during one of the coldest, wettest June's in history.
We arrived Saturday to rain and freezing temperatures. We could see our breath in the air. Dinner took forever to cook because the cold ground just sucked the heat out of the charcoal. Also, we couldn't get a good fire going because all the wood was wet. We joked about going to Gruber's and camping at their new house. After that first night we figured out a few tricks and cooking time was cut dramatically, and we did manage to get a good fire or two going. Every day got a little better as far as weather was concerned until finally Tuesday was beautiful.


Apples to Apples was a huge hit in our campsite. The kids played that every chance they could.

Here's the whole group.

The Grubers

Here we are.

On Sunday we drove all the way around the lake.

We thought it would be too cold to swim. The kids thought otherwise. Here are Hannah and Aseana.

And here's James.

Playing in the sand.

Boys will be boys...Sean and Tom doing donuts on the beach

Sean and Shellece found lots of things for us to do that we had never known about. It was crazy that we had been going to Bear Lake our entire lives and never knew about caves and springs, etc. Bear Lake Hot Springs was one of those finds. I think we never knew about it because mom and dad were always vacationing on a shoe string and didn't want to pay for 9 kids to play in the hot springs when a perfectly good lake was available for only $4.

Tim, James and Gordon are playing ball.

Tim and Gordon

I'll add more later. Other finds were the Minnetonka Cave, the Paris Springs and Ice Cave, and the Paris Tabernacle. The week ended with the Bright Family Reunion. I have lots more to show you!