Family Reunion in Albion

My brother Nathan was kind enough to send me some pictures today! I'll probably post alot just because I love pictures and they are just great! Maybe family will mostly enjoy seeing these.

So, we got to Utah on a Friday. We stayed in Bountiful until Sunday morning then headed to Brigham for my nieces baby blessing. Then we all headed up to Idaho from there for the family reunion to begin. My mom and her sister found this neat place up in Albion, Idaho. It use to be an old college started back in 1893. It offered a two year teacher training program until 1947. It had trouble with enrollment and funding and was eventually shut down by the state in 1951. You can read a bit about it here and see some pictures if you are interested in the history of the place.

Anyways, a family bought the campus back in 2007 and restored one of the buildings. It is a three story building with several rooms, a kitchen, game room, etc. for people to reserve and come have family reunions or whatever. It was a great place for a reunion and very pretty up in the mountains. We got to tour all the other buildings and see their little museum one day. They are working to restore the others as well but it'll be a big and very expensive project.

Here are some of the buildings. They are all boarded and locked up.
Before they were locked down vandals got in and did graffiti and crap, kinda sad.

Just a pretty place up in the mountains. I think that may be my dad out playing horseshoes.

We enjoyed being with family of course and we ate lots of good food. It seems like we were constantly eating. They had several fun activities we could rent to use while there. We had go- karts for a few hours. Didn't get a chance to ride in those. I think mostly the grandkids enjoyed those and getting caught by the authorities in places they shouldn't have been! :)

Many enjoyed playing several rounds in the old gym with the airsoft guns. Kinda similar to paintball I guess. It is kinda funny they are called "soft" because some came back with some nasty wounds from those little things getting shot at them.

Here is my brother Eric showing off the guns I guess! I just had to laugh when I saw these. I think him and Nathan were being silly!

We also had these fun little bikes to ride around and get quite the workout!

A bunch of them cruising around

My mom and sister just made me laugh. My sisters decided my mom needed to get out of the kitchen and do something fun. So, she came to try out the bikes. They are kinda hard to get a hang of at first. So, it was fun to watch my mom figure them out. Then my sister was kinda helping her along. They ended up going around for a bit and sometimes my sister would be pushing and sometimes running after my mom! It was quite the site to see. Made me smile!

All the little kids got to enjoy this big blow up toy. It was a great entertainer. It looks like Nathan decided to sneak in and have some fun with Kenner! :)

The kids enjoying their Uncle Nathan and Aunt Mandy! I'm sure they will
be pleased I shared these pics!

Just Chillin' with my brother Eric and his wife Aubrey

With my sisters

The brick you see behind us in these two pictures above is the original brick. In many of the rooms they left walls exposed showing the original brick. Pretty cool!

Had to include this cute one of these girls . . . and funny little Cameron there in the corner!

One night they had a fire and made smores. It got chilly that night and kinda windy. Some were brave and went out, others stayed in and watched from the windows and had smores brought in to us. . . so nice! My grandma told us some stories one day. One was about hypnotizing chickens. That gave the "kids" (ok so maybe some of my older cousins got in on it too) an idea and seeing as there were chickens wondering around we later had a few entertaining moments of watching some chickens get hypnotized! Very interesting!

Unfortunately it never got hot enough to swim in the pool there but there was a hot tub that many enjoyed. I got a kick out of my 15 and 16 year old niece and nephew putting their cell phones in a baggie to keep it from getting wet while they were sitting out there. Kids these days and their cell phones! :)

So, there you have it, some more of our Utah trip. We enjoyed Sunday afternoon through Wednesday morning up at the reunion then headed back to Bountiful until the weekend. Wayne left that Saturday and I went up to Brigham to see my family a bit more until the next Thursday. It was a great trip. Maybe if I get more pics that show some different parts of our trip then you'll get to see more!