A Blast of a Reunion!

The pictures of the boys and the rockets on the right are from our 7th annual Johnson Reunion. I didn't get very good pictures this year because Joe was a little afraid of the rockets and wouldn't leave my lap. We started off the reunion with our trip to the reunion--which was a little more eventful than we hoped for. Poor little Matt gets car sick sometimes, but not so often we remember its a problem. It's only happened a few times in the last year--and the boys tell Keith it is because of his crazy driving. Keith is driving every time it happens, so there might be something to their thinking. We got out of the car in Heber to get Matt some air and Josh said "Mom, why does Matt look white?" Dr. Obvious, as we call Josh, doesn't miss a thing--except the conversation about Matt being sick and not looking so good. We just made it through Provo Canyon when Matt couldn't hold it any longer. By the time we hit Macey's--we couldn't handle the smell any longer, so we stopped, picked up large zip lock baggies for cleanup and future issues and were able to throw the smell away! Matt hates being messy so he's pretty careful where he aims and made it mostly into the bag he had. Whew! 

We thought we were late to the reunion, but everyone got stuck behind the Eagle Mountain parade and we all got there at pretty much the same time--we were glad we hadn't missed anything. After lunch, each family was able to build a rocket. Josh decided to help Chellena and told us later that he had to do most of the work. We had a lot of fun launching and re-launching the rockets. They flew so far that we never thought we'd see some of them again, and some we didn't--Chellena and Josh's was never found. We were all surprised because we weren't sure it was going to fly at all due to technical or capable :) difficulties in the building process. 

We were able to end the evening with a pinata, bbq, and Family Home Evening at Dave and Darylin's. Josh made the comment earlier in the day that it wasn't really a Family Reunion because not everyone was there--Darylin had to stay home for part of it with the baby, Jessie and Sammy because the girls were quite sick. They were certainly missed, however they didn't let us forget them as Joe and Keith were able to share in their illness, as well as 14 other members of the family. Thanks for the memories Dave and Darylin! We really did have fun and were glad to be together.

We wished that was the end of our adventure. We stayed with Melanie and Cable Sunday night and she Annalee watched Josh and a sick Joe while we went to Primary Children's Hospital for Matt's Sweat test--which he handled very well and we enjoyed spending some one-on-one time with him. As we were leaving Mel's house that evening to go to Salt Lake to the hotel Keith had for his training that week--the van wouldn't start. After Mel gave us a jump and sent her cables with us, we were on our way--until the van died on the way into the parking garage at the hotel. We were able to coast into a parking spot where we waited for Chellena to come save us this time and gave us a jump so we could roll up the windows and go to the hotel room, then she took Keith to the auto part store to pick up a thing or two to hopefully help out our situation. The booster pack didn't work, but a nice guy who worked at the hotel gave us a jump and we were off again to take Keith to his training--which we drove around for an hour until the van died...again. Keith called his boss and he was able to find us--but before we were able to have him give us a jump, the van actually started! So we sent Keith with his boss, and we headed for home, praying the van wouldn't quit and that we wouldn't have to stop until we reached home. Prayers are answered. I pulled into the driveway, turned the van off, tried to turn it on again with no luck. The kids did well on the drive. Keith's dad was able to come and look at the van, and it was some loose battery cables. What a weird thing to suddenly have problems with, but we were grateful it wasn't costly. It was good to be home and not have to worry about the van anymore--especially for Keith, who ended up being really sick through his training and missed his classes on the last day. Glad we weren't all stuck in a hotel room together for that. We survived our adventure and challenges for the week and realized we must have needed some of the experiences to help us remember the blessings we have and the great families we have to help us out in times of need. Thank you everyone, and we love you!