Dodds Family Reunion

We spent the week after Christmas in Utah enjoying time with family. Part of that week we stayed at the Aspen Grove Family Camp for a Dodds family reunion. It was great fun! Everyone was able to be there except for Brett's brother, Kent, who is on his mission. We all love Aspen Grove! Brett's older brother, Jim, works there and was able to arrange for our stay. It was a wonderful place to hold the reunion. Each family had their own hotel-style room and we had a huge conference room area and kitchen to use the whole time.

The first day was New Year's Eve, as well as Mom Dodds' 60th birthday!! We had a wonderful evening celebrating. We had a fabulous fondue dinner. Mmmm, I LOVE fondue! I've been thinking about that meal with great fondness ever since. I'm so glad Brett gave me a fondue pot for Christmas!

After dinner we had a fun program which included everyone sharing some talents. Our kids played the piano. They both did great! Dicie had taught Dallin the first song in her piano book, so we let him play too.

Brett and I sang, "Baby It's Cold Outside." I'm sure everyone was completely blown away by our amazing performance...

Some other highlights from the talent show were, "10 Things You Can Do With a Blanket," and "The Return of Phantom of the Opera." I guess you had to be there, but they were hilarious!

We finished the evening with more fondue (chocolate of course!) and we all rang in the New Year with 10 cans of silly string. We then spent the next hour cleaning up the silly string. It vacuums quite well actually!

The rest of the reunion was a lot of fun. New Year's day the kids did a bunch of sledding, and we had several mini-classes. I taught a digital scrapbooking class. We had a group discussion, led by Dad, on economics & finances. The quote I took from that was, "A luxury once tasted becomes a necessity." I enjoyed all of it, but that quote has really stuck with me. Later we had a fun ballroom dance class and all the women attended a class on "how to help your kids succeed in school," taught by 2 Elementary school teachers in the family!

I think the highlight of that day was when we all circled up in the evening and played "After the Manner of the Adverb." Almost everyone joined in and the kids had such a fun time. Each time the person that had been chosen came back in the room to guess the adverb they were cheered as if they were on the Price is Right! My kids were positively beaming with all the fun!

We truly love our big family so much. It is so much fun to get together and we're so thankful that everyone made so many sacrifices, big and small, to be there and make it all happen.