The Zavoral Family Reunion of 2018 was held the week of 4th of July at our home. Yes, that’s right. We convinced the entire family to come visit us in Minnesota all at the same time! We are told it was a big success, and Jeremy and I had a lot of fun hosting it.
Having the reunion was a great motivator for us to get a lot of projects done around the house, like getting a new roof, deep cleaning the tile floors, shampooing carpets, vetting junk from every room and rearranging furniture and toys.
We had 21 people total at the house, and we were able to give every family their own room! Most of my baby stuff is gone, so I rounded up 4 cribs and 3 high chairs from friends in town. Thanks to our our AirBnB business, we actually had enough pillows, towels and sheets for everyone without having to buy more. It was surprisingly not stressful to host so many people at once.
The official reunion days were July 2-4. But we were lucky to have people come early and people leave late, so we had company from June 28 (Tanner’s birthday) – July 7. Everyone was together for about 20 minutes on Sunday afternoon, when Zakina arrived right before Matt had to leave (his work schedule would not allow him to stay for the full reunion). So we quickly tried to get some family photos while everyone was together. It was incredibly promptu since a few hours before we didn’t even know we would all be together at the same time. We all gathered on the porch. And then we realized we needed someone to take the picture!
So we started waving people down as they drove past our house. And it actually worked!! A coworker of Jeremy’s saw us and pulled over to help take pictures.
The Whole Zavoral Clan!
Steve and Katie were excited to yell out, “Everybody say cheese!!” Then they yelled out “Everybody say, Katie’s pregnant!” And here’s the subsequent reactions…We were all so excited for her!!
Some fun cousin shots after the big announcement!
Saturday and Sunday night, we had a fun jam session in the basement. Jeremy played drums, and Jon brought his guitar and mic equipment for everyone to sing. Alainea was with us these nights, and fell in love with the little girls and enjoyed watching how crazy our family is! We took everyone to 1910 restaurant and got trapped in a torrential downpour on the way home, too, so that was crazy.
Kateve got a really cool rental car to take them from the airport to our home, so people went out for joy rides before it was time to return the car.
Sunday at church was really fun. I got to teach music time in primary with not only my own boys and Alainea, but also with Hazel, Brooke and Carly! Gramz helped sub for us in nursery, where Ethan and Lucy got to play together. After church, Tanner helped cut pita bread for our yummy Meditarranian food for Sunday dinner. Katie and Melissa helped me get everything all put together for our first big Sunday meal!
Can you see the tree climbers?
Five kiddos in this shot! Dallin and Tanner had so much fun showing the girls the best climbing routes on the climbing tree.
Sunday evening, there was a free concert at the HHH. The grandparents, Brooke, Carly and Hazel came with Jeremy and our kids to see it.
After kids were in bed, we enjoyed visiting on our back porch. My friend Leighsa let us borrow a bunch of her flowers and outdoor chairs, which helped make everything look so nice!
Monday Morning, July 2, the official reunion began! I took input from everyone ahead of time to see what activities they would like to do at the reunion, and then put together a schedule and meal plan for the 3 days. Monday morning breakfast was Spam and Eggs. The kids were excited to all eat together.
Then we headed off to the SPAM MUSEUM!
After the museum, we ate a picnic lunch at Todd Park. The weather was absolutely gorgeous, there was plenty of shade and plenty of fun things to do at the park. The kids played on the playground, some dads played frizbee golf while the moms rested in the shade.
I brought little spray bottles for water fighting. That turned out to be a big hit. The kids loved spraying each other with them, and then discovered how fun it is to spray Grandpa Z. Soon all the dads were playing water fighting, too!
Everyone had free time for the afternoon up until dinner. This was a great chance for everyone to bond and socialize in their own way.
For dinner on Monday night, we got to eat at the church. I hired a family in the ward to prepare and serve all the food for us so that we could all have one meal where none of us had to do any work. It was so nice! We simply showed up, ate, had family home evening and left. Well, some people helped clean up a little, but then we remembered we didn’t have to, and that was cool.
Grandma Zavoral planned and prepared a family home evening lesson and activities for us. She created a scavenger hunt all through the building for the kids, and had a craft. The lesson was about being obedient. She also had a part where everyone had to tell every single person in the family that we loved them. It was super fun! To top off the evening, we had mini red-white-blue fruit pizzas for dessert.
Tuesday, July 3 was another day full of adventure. The clan went to the Nature Center and enjoyed the museum, holding a real snake, and doing the outdoor sacenger hunt!
We had lunch at home and instead of having freetime, everyone voted to go swimming at the public pool! Grandma and Grandpa paid for all our tickets, which was super nice. It was fun to watch all the kids enjoying the water and sunshine. They loved it when the aunts and uncles pretended to be crocodiles in the kiddy pool.
Uncle Jeremy with baby Dot.
I got my baby fix by the side of the pool!
Every single person in this pool is from our family.
All the cousins, except the baby!
Grandma and Grandpa did a ton of swimming with the kids. They even went down the water slides and off the diving boards!
Everyone came home and chilled until dinner time. I mowed the lawn and had some helpers!
For dinner this night, we ate taco salad. We had all kinds of yummy things to put on it. And I arranged the food to look 4th of July and festive, but I guess those photos weren’t on my phone. At bedtime, I got to read the rebel girl book to my nieces.
That night, and every night that week, Jeremy and I got to sleep with Tanner and Dallin in their room. It was really important to Tanner to be able to sleep in his own room and to have his special things untouched by guests. I made sure to honor that request for him. (He was also convinced that all the noise from the baby and toddlers would make him go deaf, but luckily his therapist worked through that with him before the reunion). It ended up being a fun bonding opportunity for the four of us to be together each night.
The 4th of July was on Wednesday, and it was a super fun day!!
We ate crepes for breakfast at home, let the kids leisurely play, and got ready for the parade. Jeremy, Tanner, Dallin and I rode our bikes to the parade spot that friends from church saved for our entire clan. Tanner’s bike had some trouble on the way there, but we eventually made it.
Dang, did we luck out on spots for the parade! Thank you to the Echols family for saving us spots. We got to be in the shade right next to the road.
The people in the parade had lots of cool things to throw at us in addition to candy: water bottles, bananas, pencils, bouncy balls, soda holders, balloons, sunglasses, flags, and even otter pops and ice cream sandwiches! That was really cool. We saw lots of friends in the parade. As usual, it was fun to see all the trucks and hear all the music. Our town is funny in that it lets every group known to man walk in the parade, so it is also long–the good ole small town American way!
We were so excited to see Alainea and Aleighcia marching in the parade!
Zoey became my little buddy during the parade. She wouldn’t leave my side! What a special treat for me!
After the parade, everyone was on their own for lunch. Some went to Burger King, some went home, and we stayed at the Echol’s house to eat with friends from church.
After lunch, some dark clouds rolled in. We tried to beat the storm, but we were too late. Luckily, Grandma and Grandpa were nearby and took the boys into their car with their bikes. Jeremy and I decided to rough it through the downpour. We got half way home and needed to take a break because the water was coming down super hard. We rested under the Ekin’s tree house and waited for the rain to let up. About 20 minutes later, the rain let up a little, so we decided to make our way home. We were soaked through and through. Pretty fun adventure, and nice to have some alone time with Jeremy during the crazy week.
When we got home, it was free time for everyone. Jeremy and Steve played catch in the rain.
The kids looked through their candy stashes from the parade.
Grandma showed the kids how to make American windmills.
People played and ran and laughed.
Melissa got some of the girls to shuck the corn for the BBQ.
And cousins bonded.
There was something wrong with cooking the meat, so everyone was trying to help and talk about ways to cook it while the kids ran around. I thought it was funny how all the grown-ups were on the deck together talking about all the ways to try making the grill work, or whatever it was. It seemed like the more people helped, the worse the problems got, haha. But luckily, the food turned out really yummy. We had BBQ stake and chicken.
Jeremy and I got to the Bandshell park ahead of everyone to set up camp for watching the fireworks.
While waiting for the big firework show, we all had a blast catching fireflies, playing chase, and setting off sparklers! Grandpa Z brought some small fireworks and put on a show right there in one of the fields of the park for us, too!! It was so so so much fun!
It was really fun for me to show the cousins how to catch fireflies.
Everyone loved the city firework show. In fact, Zach wrote to our newspaper to say that it was the best he had ever seen! I agree. Austin does a super job with their 4th of July shows. Then we headed off back to the house with lots of sleepy children. Several of us grown-ups stayed up to try bottle rockets on our front porch. We were like little kids, causing trouble and hoping the neighbors wouldn’t notice. Good times.
The following morning, all the kiddos had a dance party! Also on this day, we had to say goodbye to Zakina’s family. We got to do lots of low-key activities with the rest of the cousins, which included fishing at the river across the street and at East Side Lake, playing with baby Dorothy, eating out at El Patron, running in the sprinklers and slip and slide, and having a water balloon toss game.
It was super heartwarming to see my boys enamored by the baby and their toddler cousins.
On Friday, Dallin woke up with this lovely mosquito bite. He gets reactions like this pretty often, we think it is skeeter’s syndrome. Luckily, the swelling goes away after a few days.
Firday, we said goodbye to Kateve and kids. Melijon went up to the cities to explore a place from Jon’s youth. We took the grandparents to Mystery Cave and Forrestville State Park. We had such a fun time exploring the cave and the pioneer town.
More fun times with baby Dot.
Saturday, July 7 was our last day with the remaining Zavoral people. We went to the park with Melijon’s kids while the grown-ups packed.
We had so much fun with the Zavoral Clan and the Zavoral grandparents at our home for the 4th of July!! It was the best way to spend my favorite holiday. It went so incredibly well that we would do it again in a heartbeat.
