Reunited

July is for family.

My mom's family held the biennial Sampson Reunion this year here in Utah.

Day 1. Big Cottonwood Canyon - hiking Solitude Lake. After our hike we spent the day up the canyon playing games, and doing kid-crafts, and a devotional. 

Day 2. We met at Salt Lake City Cemetery to install a grave marker for one of our ancestors, Lucinda Bybee Layne, who died in 1895. Her grave was unmarked, and my mom decided that we needed to remedy that situation. My brother Casey, the stone mason, crafted it out of a piece of marble, my uncle Larry offered a dedicatory blessing, and we all helped cement the head stone in place. It was pretty special. 

After spending the rest of day 2 playing in water bounce houses, shooting air rockets, visiting, horse shoes and eating yummy food -  my mom's brothers and sisters (9 of them) and their spouses gave us quite a send off. The Lawrence Welk goodnight song.
Those outfits were custom crafted from t-shirts and duct tape. 

DSCN6928 from Angie Melton on Vimeo.

The Melton's all came into town the last week of July and we got to spend lots of time together. This is always special time for us since we don't see the Michigan Melton's very often. Plus, our newest cousin, Pax, came up from Las Vegas and spent the whole week with us too. We had lots of fun. We watched fireworks, rode horses, went swimming, hiked Cecret Lake, Seven Peaks, a back yard movie and roasted hot dogs in the fire pit, had a birthday dinner, and got to see Spencer be baptized and confirmed!

Horse back riding with Jess

Swimming with the cousins.

Dinner and FHE at our house.

FHE talent show...Tami and the boys played for us. Now that's talent!

DSCN6934 from Angie Melton on Vimeo.

Val and J.

All the Melton boys after Spencer's baptism

Slip-n-slide at grandma's house.

Good times. We love all our family so much!! Thanks everyone for coming! It was so good to make more memories.