Can You Say Luscious?

For all of you not in the Cox family (and perhaps a couple of you that are), this will probably be a really long and boring post, so bear with me (or feel free to skip it!) My Mom's side of the family has a reunion every year and this year looks to be the best yet! Our family reunion is going to be in Eden, Utah (who can resist a place with a name like that?) It is up above Ogden by the Pineview Reservoir. Last week I took my girls and went to preview the reunion house with my Mom, Aunt Liz, cousin Katy and her daughter Avelyn.

One word: Luscious. The house is in this breathtaking valley and it was a gorgeous drive once you turn onto Hwy 84 (it took us an hour and a half from American Fork.) Lots of beautiful green rolling hills and mountains. Let me give you a tour. Disclaimer: I took all of these photos with my wide angle lens so you could see as much as possible. However, this makes things (especially the bedrooms) look bigger than they are. So use your imagination. As you can see from the photos, the house is in a little subdivision and is pretty close to the neighbors on the side, but it totally open in the back with about 10-15 feet of lawn and then open land with lots of sagebrush and rocks. Looks to be a great exploring area for the kids, but there's likely to be little prairie snakes out there, so for those parents who are going to let their kids play out there, we should at least require that they wear long pants and sneakers, not sandals.

For our outdoor movie night, we'll get either butcher paper or sew some sheets together and tape it up between the two large stone pillars. You may want to bring your camp chairs or some blankets to sit on for the movie.

The back patio area is equipped with a hot tub (we think it fits 8) and that big window belongs to the upstairs king bedroom which has a door that accesses the patio (so Gram and the Aunties can go skinny-dipping after midnight!)

There is also a gas fire pit (mmm, s'mores!), barbeque grill, and some sweet lounge furniture.

Right off the patio is the kitchen, dining area, and living room. The view is beautiful!

There is a TV and DVD player inside the cabinet to the left of the fireplace. There's also a poker set in the other cabinet, so if you want to get wild and gamble for Skittles or something, you're all set!

The kitchen is fully equipped with cookware, baking sheets, even a coffee maker for Gram. Liz is the meal coordinator, assigning who will fix what meal and she and I will buy all the groceries. Look for an email to come with your assignment. There are dishes for eating, but we will probably still bring paper plates, cups, and flatware just so we don't have to do a lot of dishes.

There is another living room downstairs with a big screen TV, huge couch, game table, and a smaller kitchen area with a fridge and microwave for storing all the sodas and microwave popcorn that we are sure to eat!

All of the TV's in the house have cable and a DVD player, but no VHS, so if you have video tapes that you want to watch, you'll have to bring a VCR for us to hook up. Another little treasure is a cubby under the stairs, perfect for the little kids to use as a secret hideout (there's even a little fridge in the back of the cubby! Now that's a sweet fort!)

We spent a long time trying to figure out the best way to fit everyone in the bedrooms. We shuffled the list around several times and came up with the following room assignments. There are two king suites and the only way to fit everyone was to assign the king rooms to those who were willing to share a room and have some sleep on air mattresses. If you want to trade a room with someone, work it out with them (if you'd rather be upstairs instead of downstairs, etc.)

Upstairs King Suite: Gram and the Aunties. Gram and Jane get the bed and Lois Ann and Liz will bring their air mattresses.

There's a door that leads to the patio and an armchair with ottoman for watching TV or reading. There's a HUGE closet, which Liz said she may just put her air mattress in and close the door. That way if she's naughty, we can just say "Go to your closet!"

This master suite has an attached bathroom.

Who's that saucy lady in the mirror?

Upstairs Queen Room #1: Don and Lora. Bring your air mattresses or pack n' play for the little ones. There is a bunk room downstairs that we thought the older kids can sleep in with the older cousins. If you would rather be downstairs so you can be by your older kids, perhaps you could negotiate a trade with Josh and Jenn (I'm sure Josh would love to hide upstairs away from all the spazzy children!)

Upstairs Queen Room #2: Shawn & Emily. Bring air mattress and pack n' play for the little guys.

There is a bathroom in the hall between these two rooms to share.

Upstairs office: Dan and Sue. There's no bed, but there's a queen air mattress and a couch for sleeping. There's also an attached bathroom. If anyone would rather have their own private bathroom and you don't mind not having a real bed to sleep in, we're open to a trade. However, this is the bathroom where Grandad snake (read the follow-up too) made his appearance, so consider yourself warned!

For the parents of toddlers, I will be bringing two baby gates, one for the top and one for the bottom of the stairs.

Downstairs King Suite: Katy and Andy & Chris and Shad. You'll have to draw straws on who gets the bed! There is an attached bathroom and TV with cable and DVD player. Katy says she's going to bring the Playstation, so this may become the video game room. (Careful, Gil might try to move in!)

Me again. In triplicate.

Downstairs Queen Room #1: Josh and Jenn. No more commentary necessary (I'm getting tired of typing!)

Downstairs Queen Room #2: Becky & Zen. Bring pack n' play for Connor.

Bathroom in the hall.

Downstairs Bunkroom: Cousin Sleepover Central! I thought Rachel, Nicholas, Gil, Dani, Lily and any of the other cousins that want to can crash in this fun room.

It really isn't as big as the pictures make it look, but there's room to pull out the queen trundle mattress and fit at least another twin air mattress. Since Rachel is the oldest (and a teenage girl!) I thought she should have the top twin bed to herself. Gil and Nicholas can share the queen mattress and Dani and Lily can share the double bed.

Jen and Dalin will be in town for the reunion and will join us for some of our daily activities, but they will sleep at Dalin's parent's house in Huntsville, just up the road.

All of the bedrooms have bedding and extra blankets, and the bathrooms come equipped with towels and washcloths. We just need to bring our own towels for the beach and/or swimming pool at the clubhouse. We can use the clubhouse pool (about a 1 mile drive) anytime. I forgot to go look at it but the manager guy said it has a slide and a separate hot tub. We'd like to have a day at the beach on Thursday, but if there are other times you want to swim without the mess, the clubhouse pool will be perfect.

We scouted out the beach and it looks really fun. This section is about a 10 minute drive from the house and is called Middle Inlet (view map of the reservoir here.) The manager said this area is a lot less crowded than Cemetery Point where the boat dock is. There is a $9.00 per carload (up to 8 people) fee to get into the beach, so be sure to bring a little cash.

There are lots of mature trees to give us some shade and there's even a couple rope swings, although the water is pretty low so I'm not sure if we'll be able to use them.

Between the parking lot and the beach there is a big grassy area with picnic tables and BBQ grills if we need them.

Well, that's it. This is the longest blog post in history. I hope to never blog this long again! Remember the dates: Wednesday, July 11th to Saturday, July 14th. Check-in time is 4:00pm, but I'm pretty sure the owner is going to let us come earlier, like noon. Check-out time is 11:00am, but I'm going to see if we can extend that if no one is coming in right after us.

A parting shot:

Wading, waiting...