Maughan Family Reunion 2014

Well, tonight was a fun one!  We had a Maughan reunion!  We haven't had an official one of those since grandpa's 80th birthday seven years ago!

My kids loved playing with all their cousins.  Samantha picked right back up with her cousin Lea (who lives in Missouri) and made friends with a "new" cousin Hailey (also Missouri).  She's gotten email addresses and regular snail mail addresses.  She's actually pretty good at writing letters so I think this may be the beginning of a new pen pal (her & Lea hit it off last year and have written a few letters to each other since then).

In preparation for this reunion I was trying to figure out just how many Maughans there are now.  If my numbers are correct we are currently sitting at about 92.  Holy cow, that's a lot of Maughans!  We had 55 of the 92 there tonight at some point in time!
(2) Grandpa/Marian
(22) Devon/Karen
     Anthony/Jessica - Emma, Marianne, Clara, Lea, James, Benjamin
     Jeff/Carrie - Kaitlyn, Rachel, Lexi
     Angela/Dave - Jordan, Hailey, Megan, Addison, Ryan
(16) Darwin/Deb
    Jeremy/Heidi - Jaxon, Croix, Knox
    Justin/Andrea - Staten, Lincoln (new one coming in November)
    Jesse/Jaymie - Henslee, Nixon
(14) Larry/Terri
    Misty/Travis - Samantha, Nash, Caleb, Brookelyn
    Cassidy/Chad - Jade, Jack, Sunny
    Zack
(12) Gaylen/Teresa
    Nate/Amanda - Tayson
    Lance/Stacey - Dillon, +1  (name is failing me!)
    Andy, Kaylee
(8) Doug/Kathy
   Melissa/Tim
    Brandon/Katie - Braxton (new one coming in November)
(18) Bruce
    Corey/Rachel - Emory, +1 (name failing again), Fischer
    Kellie/Andrian - Mahal, Dempsey
    Luke/Kylee - Brody (new one coming in October)  
     Kayla/Josh
    Austin
    Sierra

I'm impressed - I'm only forgetting 2 names (confession - I had to check Jeff's blog for his girls' names ;) but that's still not bad!)

We even managed to get a few photos of the entire bunch, but I'm waiting to get them back from Kylee so that I am photo shopped into them!

Relay for Life 2014

Apparently I'm a nerd because I already posted about Relay!  Duh.  Here are the pictures Amanda with Silver Stem Photography took.  

Opening Ceremony

15 yrs!

Oh heavens!  We were just babies!  With no idea of what we were getting ourselves into!

July 4, 2014 - Benson Marina

July 30, 1999-July 30, 2014

 3 college graduations, 3 college degrees & 2 student loans (that are still being pd on)

 10 moves (only 1 home owned)

18 jobs (yea, seriously)

 31 surgeries (for 5 out of the 6 of us - Misty is the only surgery free one!)

 6 vehicles (only 3 car loans though!)

3 dogs & 2 cats

 4 kids

 ~11 cell phones

 2 computers

 3 cameras

 3 home based businesses (Lia Sophia, Usborne & Preschool)

 1 trip to CA, 1 trip to OR & 1 trip to Yellowstone

 1/8 of a missing limb

 3 guitars

 2 bands

Add it all up and you get 15 ys of wedded bliss!

Relay for Life 2014

This year Relay for Life was held out in Nibley at the Heritage Park.  I wasn't too sure about the venue at first, but I ended up really liking it.  I hope they do it there again!

Travis actually got to go on stage this year and play guitar.  He had an entire hour to set up, play and take down.  His mom and dad and Jamie came out to listen/watch him.  He did a really good job too.

My sister did some face painting as a fundraiser.  My kids loved it.

 Samantha performed with her dance group again this year.  They did all their dances they learned in the summer session.

More face painting photos

Final lap

It was nice to not be in charge of the silent auction this year.  I was a bit worried when I saw how high some of the minimum bids were.  I found out later that all but one item sold so I was happy to hear that.  It seemed like there were fewer items than what there has been in the past but it could have just been the way it was set up.

Our total $ number at the end of the event (not including the silent auction money) was just over $64,000.  I was disappointed to hear that.  Granted, $64K is still a lot of money, and we can turn money in until the end of the calendar year, BUT we've never had a number that low in the entire six years I've been doing Relay.  In fact, we've never done less than $90K as a final total.  I sure hope our numbers go up.  I can't figure out why our numbers were so low because according to our chair, we were on target all year long.  Plus, I know that my team did more money on site than we have EVER done.  We did over $300 in fundraising on site.  We never do more than about $50 and because of that we almost didn't take anything up there with us.  I'm glad we did!  I've already said I will help again next year.  I'd prefer not to do Sponsorship but now that I've done it 3 yrs in a row, it's a bit easy to do it.  It's really just a matter of making time to go out and make the contacts face to face instead of over the phone.  Mom and I have already started formulating ideas on how to improve our fundraising totals for next year.  Our team has done $838.30 and we still have another $150 to turn in so we will be sitting at $988.30.  That's not too bad since my team goal was $1,000 and it's generally (not always) just me doing the fundraising efforts.  I did like that Sam and Nash got in on the fundraising efforts this year.  Sam raised about $70 and Nash raised about $65 just by going to the teachers and staff at their school and asking if they'd like to donate.  I think it helped that they made it a competition between themselves too :)

Here's to next year!

4th of July

We had quite the busy Fourth of July weekend!  For the first time in quite a long time our dad was home for the holiday!  On the 3rd Sam was to perform at the stadium fireworks at the Romney Stadium.  We usually go to the fireworks at the stadium but we don't usually go up until about 8-8:30.  Sam had to be there at 5:30 and they were dancing right at 8 so we decided to head up when the gates opened at 7.  We took the other kids to Grandpa Scott & Grandma Kris's house and had dinner first and then headed to the stadium at 7.  We managed to get a good parking spot in the stadium without having to pay but I'm not sure it was worth the 45 minute wait to get out of the parking lot afterwards!  It was a good thing we left when we did because she really did dance right at 8!

 She did a great job and it was fun to watch her.  It was a long time for the other kids to be at the stadium though, that's for sure!  I think I prefer going up at 8 pm instead!

On the Fourth we went down and watched the Hyrum parade (despite knowing better).  I will say this year was better than last year because the parade was only about an hr to an hr and a half long rather than two and a half hours long.  The kids got more candy than usual too, so that was nice for them.

After the parade Trav's brother and his family came over to our place for a bit.  The boys decided they were going to call Grandpa Scott and Grandma Kris and ask if we could take the jet ski's out to Benson to play.  So, a few hours later we ended up out at Benson and stayed there until dark.  The kids had a great time.  Nash got up on his feet on the little jet ski for the first time too.

We even managed to not get too sunburned!