Summer 2013 Chapter 1 - Family Reunion in Arizona

The James Ivan Young family reunion in Arizona began for Steve and me at about 7:00 on Wednesday morning, June 26^th.  Our first stop was Springfield, MO to connect with Emily and kids and to rent a van from Alamo (which is the only rental car company that gives unlimited miles to unlimited states).  I didn’t act quick enough to procure a van from the Alamo in St. Louis (the logical location as Emily lives there!) so the next option was Springfield which was on the way to our destination.   The van rental part was easy – super nice vehicle with a built-in DVD player – but the Emily part was rough.  Lucy threw up almost right away (not even out of St. Louis)  and she fussed and Quinn cried almost the entire three hours!  She arrived amid oppressive noon heat with three unhappy, hungry kids and the job of moving all the luggage out of our own vehicles and into the van and you have the beginning to our trip out west!  I wish I could say that it got better from then on but I cannot.  Poor Quinn just hated his car seat and he cried about half the way there.  Lucy was really good most of the time.  She only squawked (really loudly) when she had been in her seat too long and usually, that was also when Quinn was crying so often, we had a duet in the back seat.  Noah was just perfect – a great traveler.   

 

Noah and Lucy in a park in Oklahoma City where we stopped for a picnic dinner. 

 

 

 Steve and Quinn at the park

Emily with a sad Noah who didn't want to leave the park.  It was HOT there.

We stayed overnight in Amarillo – poor Emily got very little sleep that night because we were all in the same room and she worked really hard to keep Quinn quiet so everyone else could sleep.  Going through Albuquerque the next day we made a little detour to visit a dear friend of Emily’s who lives in a suburb north of the city.  She fed us lunch (including a gluten-free pizza and cupcakes for me!  How amazing is that?).  

 Here is Emily and family with her friend, Misty, and her children. 

(We took several shots of this pose and Noah had is tongue out in each frame!)

 
my gluten-free cupcakes

 It seems like we are always pulling into Payson at night and we did this time, too. Only, our destination was not Juli’s house but a house in Strawberry (about 20 miles north of Payson).  Originally, I had hotel rooms booked for all of us but when Cory, Amy’s husband, said his mother’s house in Strawberry was open that weekend for us to stay in for free, I jumped at the offer (at a savings of almost $1000).  Trouble with this house was that it was difficult to find – especially in the dark.  We followed Cory’s instructions (or so we thought) but when we started going up very narrow, steep, windy, dirt path up the mountain, I started to freak out (literally) and told Steve to stop the car and have Emily try once again to reach Cory on her cell phone (only her provider had service in that area).  Thankfully, she got him and described where we were and what we had passed on our way and we learned that we had actually driven past his mother’s mountain house a ways back.  So, then we had to turn around on that very narrow, steep, windy, dirt path with a van and try NOT to slide down the mountain.  I have never been so scared in my life.  It was terrifying.  Thankfully, the van has a back-up camera and very good traction and there was a little tiny steeper road to the left that we could use for a turn-around and somehow, we managed to turn that big long van around and creep our way back down the mountain to the house.  

The house was built about 40 years ago into the side of the mountain and so we had a long flight of stairs to climb to get to the front door.  (did anyone take a picture of the place???)There were three bedrooms – one on the main level for Emily and Quinn and two upstairs where one room was huge with five beds and one was small with a crib.  There were two bathrooms but extremely poor water pressure that only got worse as the days wore on.  I am talking about just drops of water coming out of the shower head.   COLD drops of water as the water heater seemed to stop working, too.  The upstairs toilet overflowed at least once.  Yay.  And the mountains were experiencing a heat wave.  Really hot.  And, only a few windows had screens to allow them to be opened.  And, the house had only two ancient fans.  SO, while we saved a thousand dollars, we paid for it in uncomfortableness.   Sorry, kids.

So, trip out – miserable.  Accommodations – miserable.  Reunion – a HAPPY SUCCESS!  We began on Friday with a temple trip down in Mesa.  Except for Quinn crying all the way down the mountain and the fact that we were all exhausted from lack of sleep, it was really great at the temple.  In attendance were Steve, me, my sister Juli, and Steven , Julina, and Ryan and Kirsti (Steven flew out and Juli trained out with Alex.  Alex had to get back to work so he was not there. Kirsti and Ryan drove down).  Afterward, we had a potluck dinner at Brent and Susette’s gorgeous home in Mesa with kids running all around playing happily and Brent entertaining us with his guitar.  Then, it was back up the mountain and a better night’s sleep thanks to two large fans we bought and a bit of bed-shuffling.  Saturday the gathering was at Amy and Cory’s home in Strawberry – they live in the flat part of town in a very nice, new home that is all on one level to accommodate the twin’s wheelchairs.  For our service project, we colored quilt squares and enjoyed visiting with each other.  

 

 We ate a delicious potluck lunch and had a family meeting out under the trees where the breeze and the shade were quite pleasant.  

 

 

 Kirsti helped video tape an interview with Jerri, Judy, and Jim where they reminisced about their youth with mom and dad.  We ended the day down in Payson with dinner at a pizza place and a group photo 

 

 

and the reunion was over until 2018 when we will gather again in La Jolla, California.  Amy and Cory invited us to spend Saturday night at their place (they returned to Mesa) and we got the best sleep ever.  Sunday we went to church with Juli in Payson and returned to Strawberry to wash bed sheets and close up the mother’s house and prepare for departure the next morning – Steve, Julina and Emily and kids to the mid-west (same route – stopped at friend’s house in Albuquerque again, slept in Amarillo only got two rooms and slept better for it, return van in Springfield and Juli continued with Emily to St. Louis and caught a bus back to Indy on Wednesday) and my sister Juli and I for Europe.