Smoot Roots

At the end of September we had a "Smoot" (my family) Reunion in Wyoming. Every year one of my dad's siblings has been in charge of the annual reunion and this year it was my parents (and our families) turn to be in charge. We held it up in Wyoming about 1 mile from my parents cabin at the Uintah Youth Camp. It was the perfect size for our very large group. It included a main lodge for meals and activities, 12 family cabins including a VIP cabin for Grandma and Grandpa. We all went up early on friday to prep the food and lodge for everyone's arrival on Friday night.

The theme of this years reunion was "Smoot Roots - Forever Strong" so we got some imitation LIVESTRONG bracelets for everyone.

THe reunion officially started on Friday afternoon with activities such as fishing at the stocked fish pond on the property, 4 wheeling and for my kids: getting as dirty as possible as quick as possible.

I cannot even tell you how much fun my kids had fishing. I was a little worried about them watching us whack the fishes head of a rock once we caught him (to kill him quickly) and about having them see us gut the fish. But turned out they thought both were pretty cool.

{Brady and Nat}

The nice thing about a stocked fish pond is, you will always catch something.

Back at the lodge that night we had a big dinner put on by the Kjars and had a little birthday celebration for Grandpa Smoot, whose birthday was the day before. Then we had a movie and popcorn night in the lodge watching "Forever Strong".

The next morning after breakfast we had all sorts of fun classes.

Arts and crafts for the kids

Cooking classes and demos for the adults and more...

Eric spent most the day Saturday tending to his 5 briskets he was slow smoking for dinner that night. They turned out great.

The kids played hard all day so by dinner one by one we were losing some of them...

After dinner we played games. My favorite which I cannot wait to play at a party soon, "minute to win it" It was hillarious.

Here are all the uncles trying to move an oreo from their forehead to their mouth without using their hands....

My sisters Bree and Christa and Sis in law Natalie

After game night we had our "family dance". Its a family tradition to have dancing as much as we can at each reunion, function or wedding. Eric totally thinks its crazy we have enough people even after 1/3 had left to have a full blown dance party. Have I mentioned there are 7 Smoot siblings who have had my over 60 cousins who have now had over 20 great grand kids (mine included) My little Brother Spencer DJed the dance and everyone had tons of fun.

I am so lucky to come from such a close, and wonderful family. Eric and I kept saying the whole weekend that having all my cousins up there and seeing how much fun they have together and how close everyone is makes us really want to have a big family. Sure they are lots of work but I love coming from a big crazy family who loves and supports each other so much.

We are so blessed.

{the 2 who started it all Stan and Mary Ellen Smoot, rejoicing in their posterity}

Thanks to everyone who came, I know my parents really appreciated it and we loved being with all of you! And thanks to my parents for their hard work and prep. When looking back through my pics I had none of them probably cuz they were cooking and working so much. We I actually had one "minute to win pic" of my mom but I think she would kill me if I posted it.

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