Family Reunioning In Style

A glimpse of the cabin's backyard

Although the Michael-and-LaDonna-Tobler-Family (my parents, siblings, and their families) have had many opportunities to get together (weddings, funerals, baby blessings, holidays), we just completed our very first official Tobler Family reunion. And it was a blast.

(Sure, we've had many, many, MANY family reunions. But always with extended family: The Tobler extended family in June 2004 up at Island Park, always to be remembered as the Reunion-with-the-Virulent-Stomach-Flu; the Pace extended family in summer 2005 when we visited lots of graveyards; etc. Not to mention the biennial reunions of our youth.)

But this time it was just us. All 29 of us: 12 adults and 17 kids (15 of whom are under the age of nine). The setting: An absolutely gorgeous, gigantic cabin belonging to my sister-in-law's uncle, up at Bear Lake, Idaho-side.

Seriously, this cabin was amazing. There were enough bedrooms that every adult or adult couple got their own, plus one extra bedroom, plus a loft, plus a bunkroom. A very large great room--kitchen, dining, living. Another loft. And the large basement room, filled with futons and nice covered mattress-type pads and large-screen TV.

Chilling in the great room. We had 10 laptop computers present: Mom (2), LaDale (2), Jenafer (2), us (2), Samuel (1), David (1), Telima (0) (her laptop doesn't work right now)

The backyard was spectacular, if a little scary for moms of toddlers. There was a canal-creek running along the back, with a bridge across it to a fire pit. (There was a large veranda with picnic tables and a porch swing that, once we blocked off the ramp, was perfect to let the little ones play around on.) Tons of grass surrounded the cabin, and there was a volleyball net set up.

Hanging out on the veranda

It was gorgeous--so marvelous that, in fact, the vast majority of us never visited the actual lake at all. We were all perfectly content to hang out in and around the cabin. (And, when you consider how many very small children were present, that tells you more about the size of the cabin than anything else I've written.)

We had very few actual activities planned: a family slideshow, a little family home evening lesson for the kids, the most hilarious game of TV/movie theme music Jeopardy! ever, family pictures. It was really low-key, and although I imagine my sister's 11- and 13-year-old got a little bored, the pace was perfect for the little kids and their parents.

Family Home Evening (on a Thursday! Scandalous!) with the munchkin gang

There were only two things that weren't perfect: one of my nephews didn't feel like sleeping 2 of the 3 nights, and my poor sister was totally exhausted (at least she had plenty of people to give her naps!); and on Friday my oldest sister and one of my nieces had the stomach flu. (Which then came home with our family and at least one other family.) (So far!)

And so it was, in fact, a practically perfect family reunion. Thank you so much to Samuel and Caren for planning it, and for everyone making time to come to it. See you in two years!