Ten-Year Thoughts from Our 2008 Family Reunion

Blog schmog, brag schmag. I guess for my first attempt at blogging I can be a little bit excited about the marvelous and enjoyable family reunion we just experienced in a beautiful rented cabin in Timber Lakes, a gated mountain retreat community a few miles east of Heber, Utah. Of our children and their spouses and the grandchildren, only Jazzy (age 14 and the oldest grandchild) was not able to be with us because she was at a stake girls’ camp.

That means we had 27 of the 28 of us, plus one about to be born in three weeks or so, and one more just a few weeks along that we learned about at reunion. The last 10 grandchildren in a row have been boys. The one almost due to Jack Jr. and Natalie will be the eleventh boy in a row and the 16th grandchild. The newly announced baby to come to Don and Kristi…well, we’ll have to wait another seven or eight months to find out whether it’s going to be boy or girl (big brother Evan surely wants a girl). This is going to be agonizing suspense!

So much happened at reunion—and thank you, Jack and Natalie and everyone for great planning and organizing—but for now I’ll just mention a couple of things. At our adults-only meeting I suggested everyone do some thinking about what the family could be like ten years from now. Four days ago Linda and I celebrated 467 months of marriage—that’s one month short of 39 years. In ten years we’ll be one year short of our 50th wedding anniversary (but we’re not getting any older). In that same ten years Jed and Camille could be grandparents (Jazzy may have more to say about that). Carley could almost be graduated from college. Josh could be home from his mission. Gabby could be going to her first year of college. Jaqlyn could be a high school graduate. Max and Cameron could be in the 11th Grade. Evan and Turley could be starting to drive. And there will be a parcel of teenage and nearly-teen boys.

I even suggested that Linda and I could have as many as 30 grandchildren within the next ten years, but I don’t think anyone was very convinced, but enough blog-braggin’ for now.