Stern and Lucille Willard Family Reunion

The Family Reunion was at Leeds, Utah near St. George. In other words...it was HOT!! We spent the first day setting up camp and playing some fun family games. 

On friday morning, we went on a hike in the Red Cliff Area (called the mini-narrows). We hiked up to the first pool of water stopping along the way to check out caverns and crevices. 

This is the first part of the hike...just sage brush until you got into the Red Cliff's. We even took Brooklyn with us in a baby sling with a hat on. She did REALLY well on the hike and slept most of the way enjoying being attatched to mom for a few hours.

The kids were really adventurous and had a great time exploring. 

This was the first pool of water. It looks small and shallow but, it is deep enough for people to jump off the cliff into. 

The kids were catching tad poles and bugs. 

The kids were playing around the water then Abbie got too close and fell in. She hasn't had formal swimming lessons and all I could do(with the baby strapped to me) was scream for Reed to get her. She was fine and informed us that she didn't even swallow any water. We will be signing them up for swim lessons SOON!! 

After that, someone (an adult) stayed in the water while the kids were playing on the edges. 

The kids had fun swimming. 

A few groups of boys came along and showed us how they jumped off the cliff. 

Chris got brave enough and jumped too. 

Dad even went down the waterfall. 

Isaac and Reed went up the top to play in the pool above the other pool. 

Chris jumped again. Nobody else jumped...it looked pretty difficult to hit the exact spot where it was deep enough to jump. 

Isaac with my cousin Kraig and his boy JD 

Three of Allisha's kids came with grandma and granpa Millett to enjoy the reunion. They had a ton of fun catching tad poles and swimming. 

Isaac was brave enough to jump in the pool to Reed. 

Isaac was brave and wanted to swim. We will be getting him in swimming lesson also soon. He's a little braver than I was comfortable with. 

Abbie and Reed went to the upper pool to catch tad pools. 

The kids took turns jumping in the pool to Chris and Grandpa. 

Then we hiked farther up the trail to another pool where the red rock slides were better for the kids. We still stationed an adult at the bottom of the slide because it got deep really quickly. Isaac found out the hard way how deep it got when he kept slipping and kept falling until he couldn't reach any more and had to be saved by grandpa. 

Kaden and Dad sliding down the red rocks. 

This is looking UP the trail. We didn't go farther than this because you had to use foot holds scraped into the red rocks and a rope to go farther up....NOT FOR US. We had seen and had enough fun for us. The trail goes up another few miles but, this was as far as we went and it was the perfect amount of hike for all us with the kids. 

It was BEAUTIFUL!! 

The kids had a blast! 

Some stayed at the bottom of the pool while other went up to the top of the red rock slide. We all had a good time.

It's crazy how there could be so much water in the dessert. 

We stayed for quite a while and enjoyed the beautiful red rock scenery and water pools.

It was such a fun hike! 

Once we went back to camp we stayed in the shade and the kids made a "treasure" lunch box. Each kid made it their own with fun stickers. 

We played games and did fun craft projects. 

It was a little windy that afternoon so I spent most of the afternoon with brooklyn under my nursing cover out of the wind. She was really good camping. 

We played games and enjoyed being together.

The next morning as we were taking down camp. Brooklyn stayed out of the heat and slept in the trailer as we took down camp.

The kids played the rung, tennis ball game that morning and spent a lot of time on the trampoline.

Brooklyn did really good in the heat and loved sleeping without any blankets.

It was a really fun reunion!! It was so much fun seeing everyone and spending time with you all!

Can't wait to see you all next year!