Walters Family Reunion

This was the year for the Walters Family Reunion.  It took place in Jackson Hole, WY with Jared's mom's side of the family.  Between grandparents, kids, grandkids, and great grandkids with all the current or future spouses, there were over 90 people who came to the reunion.  We had a house that was the activities center and condos for all the families.

First, the drive.  We split up our trip to Jackson Hole into two days, traveling first to La Grande, OR.  Kate and Liam did pretty well throughout the whole vacation.

Liam sometimes would fall asleep mid-bottle.

Overall, we traveled 34 hours and 1900 miles.  The kids all being asleep at the same time happened exactly once... for 10 minutes until Jacob and Claire's heads hit each other and woke Claire up.  It was pretty funny/sad to watch Jacob and Claire's heads bobbing back and forth.

The first day, we went on a hike up to the top of Snow King mountain.  It was about a 2 mile hike ascending about 1,600 feet.

There were a lot of little people on the hike - I believe there were 30 great grandkids 6 or under!  One person we passed commented that it looked like an ant farm!  It was a pretty tiring hike.

Liam had a fun time on the hike - he eventually fell asleep for a few minutes, but he was so excited to be hiking that he just talked and talked.

Jacob and Claire at the top.

After reaching the top, we took the chairlift down.  Liam and Kate seemed to like it.  Claire rode down with my aunt Kalle.  According to Kalle, they really struck it off as they talked the entire way down the lift.

We took the kids swimming one day.  Kate and Liam both enjoyed swimming.  Liam would sit on the side of the pool and dive toward me.

We went back to the church Jacob and Claire were blessed at.  We showed up with a big group right at 9:30, like we planned and opened up the curtains to the gym where there were more chairs set up... only to learn that church started at 9:00!

Dani and I got to go mountain biking.

Jackson Hole Resort has an awesome group of mountain bike trails with banked turns, jumps, and fun wooden structures.

I did a few extra rides with some of my cousins after Dani left.  It started raining, and this is the result!

We did a chuckwagon dinner where we rode 2 miles in a horse-pulled wagon to a little area where we were treated to dinner and a show.

Jacob turned into a big daddy's boy on the trip - if I was in eyesight, he wanted to be held by me.

Jacob and his cute toothless grin!

On the way back, Jacob got to drive the chuckwagon!  Our wagon driver memorized all our names and 1 thing about ourselves of our choosing.  Our group was Jacob "the talker," Claire "the reader," Dani "the mother of twins," Jared "the jungle gym," Kate "the crazy," and Liam "the eater."

Claire got a turn driving the covered wagon.

 We got to see a western shootout in Jackson.  Jacob wasn't feeling well, so he didn't get to see it.  I'm curious to know what kind of questions he would've asked!  Jacob and Claire got to stand in front of the antler arches.

We also went swimming at the Jackson Hole rec center, played at the alpine slides, and played family games, including freeing candy from the packing tape great ball of candy.  It was fun to see family, including my granny and grandpa.  We love Jackson Hole!