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I’ve talked about the activities we’ve done at past family reunions, but this is my first chance to talk about a recent reunion.
This summer we attended a family reunion near Zion National Park. We camped in the park a number of years ago for a reunion, but this time we opted to rent a house in Hurricane, Utah, a half hour or so away from the south gate of Zion NP.
Some of my siblings and their kids hiked the Subway and the Narrows, but we decided not to. Both hikes are long and strenuous and we’re just not prepared for that yet.
Instead of hiking the Narrows, we played in the pool in the backyard with the others who didn’t go on the hikes.
There was a small putting green in the back yard that the kids had fun with, and we set up a ladder ball game on the green as well.
One of the days Jeremy, Sunshine and I (and various siblings, nieces, and nephews) hiked to Angel’s Landing, as well as to Weeping Rock and the Lower Emerald Pool, both of which are much shorter and less strenuous than Angel’s Landing. The boys stayed with my parents, who didn’t feel up to hiking Angel’s Landing.
The hikes ended up taking more time than we’d anticipated, so while we’d planned some other activities we just didn’t have time for them.
We did have time for our white elephant gift exchange, which is always lots of fun. We didn’t fare too badly: we came home with a cheap 3d pen thing, a cheap star projector, and an Alaskan Airlines Lego plane. We skipped the container of sample size shampoos, the Alaska ball cap, the Monster High doll, the ceramic hand to hold your cell phone, or any of the other many random things that were in the pot this year. We all pride ourselves on finding things that aren’t actually useful or desirable 🙂
The hikes we went on are so well traveled that there were always lots of other people around and we never had to wonder about where we were going or how much further there was to go. In the past we’ve hiked on trails that were not well traveled and much harder to figure out where exactly we were and how far we’d gone.
As a result, there were no disastrous hikes this year, though we did have some excitement with a small grease fire in the grill on the back patio. Thankfully there was a fire extinguisher on the windowsill of the kitchen and the fire was easily put out.
The thing we noticed with this reunion was that it felt more fragmented than usual. Different groups went off for different hikes and we didn’t spend as much time doing things all in one big group. It was a different dynamic, and I’m curious to see if this is our new way of doing things, or if next time we’ll have more universal activities.
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A few thoughts about the house we rented. We’ve rented houses and condos before for our reunions, so it’s not a completely new experience for us. What was new was that this house was in the middle of a residential neighborhood, not in a seasonal vacation area.
The morning we left, we felt like we were providing the entertainment for some of the neighbors. Seriously. A couple older men were sitting on chairs in the driveway two houses over, just watching us as we loaded our cars and left. They must have a called a friend, since they were joined by another guy who also sat and watched us.
Obviously, we try to be respectful of the neighbors and not make too much noise or anything, but it was a bit disconcerting to be the object of so much attention. Next time we rent a house, we’ll be more aware of what type of neighborhood it’s in.
Have you had any crazy experiences at a rental house?
