willis family reunion

Where do you send your pictures for the video???

2009-05-20T21:35:00.000-07:00

You can post them on http://photobucket.com/ and let Tait know at taitwillis@msn.com when you have them on there.

Username: willisfamilyreunion
password: willis09

TAIT NEEDS YOUR PICTURES NO LATER THAN June 15th IF YOU WANT THEM ON THE VIDEO.

Where is the cabin?

2009-05-07T17:52:00.000-07:00

Here are the directions I recieved from the owner:

BARNEY CABIN> 2116 Marble Road> Clay Sprin gs, AZ 85923> (928) 739-4711 (cabin phone number)>> Take Gilbert Rd to the Beeline Highway, then to Payson. (about 1-1-1/2 hours). In Payson, turn east at McDonald's onto the 260 toward ShowLow. Stay on this through Heber and Overgaard. (about another hour). At milepost #324, you will turn left. There is a convenience store and a sign that says Clay Springs. In a couple of miles, you will make a very sharp turn. About 1/2 mile after this sharp turn, you will come to Marble Rd. Big white building is it.

Side note: Yeah to Heidi and Kristen for being the first ones to get their checks to me!

Mary, I'll e-mail you with your craft budget. I think Janet volunteered a few months ago to help with this too so you might want to get with her. Thanks for volunteering!!!

Oh and....

2009-05-02T21:16:00.001-07:00

I'll volunteer to do the crafts for the kids. What is my budget?

We changed a little bit.

2009-05-02T21:10:00.000-07:00

Just to let you know we have changed our list of people coming a bit. Randy can't get off work so he and the girls won't be able to come. So it is now:

Rob and Mary
Cameron and Kaylie
Gerrick and Megan
Micah, Joye, Matt and Jared

I hope it's okay for girlfriends to come?

e-mail sent by Kristen regarding activities

2009-05-02T17:08:00.000-07:00

HEY EVERYONE!!!! Since Laura and I are super busy people right now running businesses, doing 2 reunions, Stake Girls Camp, taking care of our children and dealing with softball season.... WE NEED SOME HELP ON THIS REUNION! SO...this is what we've decided. We're breaking the entertainment/activities into groups. We are asking for volunteers to help take charge of each activity. Here's what we have. Take a look and see what you'd love to help out with. Please fill in your name and hit reply all. Then, we're leaving it up to you to take the ball and run with it. If you have any other ideas for activities, add it to the list and put your name by it. The more the merrier!
FAMILY OLYMPICS - kristen
TALENT SHOW - (help djing and organizing) -
CRAFTS FOR KIDS - (planning and buying supplies) -
GAME TOURNAMENT - (think of games and organize) -
DANCE PARTY - (Passey girls..i'm talking to you!) -
FAMILY MOVIE - Tait Please send him your photos or this won't work.
ALSO - please send a recent picture of your family.
BROWN BAG RUNWAY - (ask me about this if interested) -

Email sent out today with cost amounts

2009-05-02T16:59:00.000-07:00

I'm so sorry that this has taken me so long. I guess I hate asking for money from people and it took me a while to figure out the costs. Here is what I have. Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns.

List of people coming:
Grandma
Micah, Joye, 2 children
Karen
Mary, Rob, Gerrick, Cameron
Randy, 2 children
Lindsey, Reggie, 2 children
Tait, Heidi, 3 children
Joyce, KC, Brent, Chris, maybe Brian
Diane, Frank
Kristen, Jeff, 4 children
Brent, Laura, 4 children
Todd, Jen, 5 children
Matt, Becky, 3 children
Janet, (you said your kids are coming, does that mean all of them?)
Amy, Jeff, 1 child
Carl, Paulette (1 day)
=63 possible

Meals:
Thursday: Dinner
Friday: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner
Saturday: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner
Sunday: Breakfast

Costs: $2.50 per meal for adults x 8 meals including nightly desserts =$20, $1.50 per meal for children (8 and under) = $12
Incidentals: toilet paper, crafts, snacks, propane, plates, silverware, cups, etc. = $5 per person total

Cabin= $200 per night x 3 nights divided by around 60 people = $10.00 per person

Totals:For all four days, Cabin, food and incidentals:Total: $35.00 per adult, $27.00 per child (child is 8 to 2 years old) Children under 2 are free for meals but still $10.00 for the cabin

If we have extra money after it is all over, we will reimburse everyone the extra amount.

Please send Laura Krummenacher the money by June 1st. My address is 511 N. Maple, Mesa, Az 85205If you send it right now, you won't forget! :)

If you are not going to be with us for every meal, you can figure the price of each meal you are eating and send us that amount instead of the amount I figured but we still need the $5 for incidentals and $10.00 for the cabin per person.

I can't wait to see you all! Look out for an e-mail from Kristen asking for help with committees! Love you all,Laura

HOW MUCH!?!

2009-05-01T22:02:00.000-07:00

Are we ever going to find out how much this reunion is going to cost or........is this going to be on the Bradshaw Family - You guys are so generous!

Ideas, Ideas, Ideas!

2009-02-16T18:10:00.000-08:00

I have been trying to come up with fun activities and things to do while we are at the reunion and would love some suggestions. I really want this to be a fun time for everyone. We Willis Family members tend to all hang back and wait for the fun to start sometimes. Let's change that for the reunion and all of us try to get into it and have a great time. I've been to several Arnett reunions and know reunions can be a blast if everyone puts in the effort to have a good time. I also know it takes a lot of planning fun activities for the fun to happen so in this department we need a little help. Here are some of my ideas:

1. I'd like someone to be in charge of a children's activity every day. I plan on scheduling an hour each day for this. It could be crafts or fun games like scavenger hunts, etc.

2. We would like to go to the lake one day and maybe while we are there some could do some fishing, some could go hiking, some could just hang out at the water and talk. If you plan on fishing, please bring your equipment.

3. One day we will be doing Family Games/Olympics we had a blast when Aunt Joyce and Aunt Mary planned them last time so this one will have to be a keeper. Any ideas or suggestions for this would be great.

4. We'd like to do a talent/skit night. Now don't go turning your nose up at this. Every family is required to do a talent or a skit or two. The sillier the talent or skit, the better. Think fun! We will do this probably on Friday night so you can use some time on Thursday and Friday to plan with your families. They have some costumes there that you can use too.

5. I'm thinking maybe a luau for the first night as a big welcome party. Or the last night as a goodbye party. Bring your Hawaiian gear and be ready to party. I know that kids love dances so I will be looking for some fun dance party music like chicken dance, etc. I would love some adults to plan on joining in on this so that it will be fun for the kids. If anybody has some fun music, please let me know.

6. We plan on doing a movie night with old family photos and videos. Tait is working hard on this but he needs photos from people so please e-mail him with any that you have. I still need to get on this myself!

Kristen is coming to Arizona in a few weeks so we will be getting a lot of things ironed out including food, sleeping arrangements and cost. We will keep you all posted. If you still have not let me know if you are or are not coming, please let me know before March 4th. This is when Kristen is coming so we will need numbers by that point. Love you all and can't wait to see you!

Pictures for the slideshow

2009-01-25T09:34:00.000-08:00

Tait informed me that the photobucket account is not working anymore. If you have pictures that you think would be good for the slideshow that he is doing, just send them to Tait at his e-mail. If that starts to be a problem then I will figure out the photobucket thing again. Here is his e-mail:

taitwillis@msn.com

Updated list on those attending the reunion

2009-01-24T10:50:00.000-08:00

Grandma
Micah, Joye, 2 children
Karen
Mary, Rob, Gerrick
Cameron, (Are you bringing your bride to be?)
Randy, 2 children ?
Lindsey, Reggie, 2 children
Tait, Heidi, 3 children
Joyce, KC, (which of your kids are coming?)
Diane, Frank
Kristen, Jeff, 4 children
Brent, Laura, 4 children
Todd, Jen, 5 children
Matt, Becky, 3 children
Janet, (you said your kids are coming, does that mean all of them?)
Amy, Jeff, 1 child

This is 54 total for sure coming not including Janet's or Joyce's kids. Looks like we're going to have a lot of us there! I'm so excited!

I haven't heard from:
Carl, and Paulette
Any of Joyce's kids except Bethany who is not coming
Any of Carl's kids except Tait who is coming
Any of Karen's kids except Melissa who is not coming
Am I missing anyone?

I still don't have a lot of family e-mails so please pass this info along to everyone!

pictures of the cabin for the reunion

2009-01-18T14:18:00.000-08:00

Old e-mail I sent out with the info:

2009-01-02T20:52:00.000-08:00

Hi Family,
We went up to the cabin that we were hoping to use for the reunion today. It is an old lds church that they renovated into a cabin. It was fun to look behind a door and find the baptismal font still there. They also have those big gold dividers dividing the two main family rooms and a huge red curtain still up that was probably used for the stage when there was a stage there. We are all getting excited for the reunion but I need a little help from all of you.

We decided that we need to have a deadline to know who will be planning to attend. We will basically be at a stand still on planning until we know exactly who is coming. I know this is hard to do so far in advance because schedules are always changing. Just think of it as if you are booking a cruise that you need to schedule time for only it will be with way cooler people, way better food, and some unbelievable cruise/cabin directors who will be planning fabulous activities!

Dates Planned: Arrive Thursday, July 9th and Leave either Saturday, July 11th or Sunday, July 12th. We realized when we were trying to think of activities that if we go Thursday thru Saturday that will only give us 1 full day together. We would love for everyone to go home on Sunday so we can have two full days together but we know that will be hard for some of you who live out of state to do.

Deadline for rsvp: February 1st (hopefully this will give you time to figure out your schedules.) The cabin is $200.00 per night for everyone so the more that come, the less it will cost per person. We will not be able to figure out the cost per person until February 1st when we have the total amount of people attending. Remember that food will need to be figured into the total cost per person.

The cabin has 11 bedrooms and there is also a really big room that was probably the relief society room that they now use as a dining room. We will be eating outside for all of our meals so we think we can make that big room into a bedroom. All first generation family members and Grandma will be given the bedrooms first, after that, we will just have to figure it out. Obviously with 89 members in our family, we will have to do a lot of doubling up in bedrooms and a lot of blow up mattresses. Please let me know if you have any mattresses that you can bring. When we stayed there with a lot of families in our ward, the kids ended up just all sleeping together in the huge family room that used to be the cultural hall.

We talked about having a movie night with a family slide show presentation. In order to make this happen I have created a photobucket account. Please look through your pictures when you have time, scan them into your computer and then put them on the photobucket account. Here is the link:http://photobucket.com/willisfamilypassword: willis

Here is the comment from Janet. I thought it would be better in a post!

2008-11-20T20:05:00.001-08:00

Janet said...
Count me and my family in! Just a note to everyone -- Amy never gets any emails. Her email address is amycherie@gmal.com. Add her to your lists everyone. Amy said she, Jeff and Liberty are planning on coming.

Video for Movie Night

2008-11-04T20:37:00.000-08:00

Great news! (At least for me!) Tait has offered to make the video for us. Please remember to go to the photobucket site (http://photobucket.com/willisfamily password: willis) to put in any pictures you have that are Willis related. Tait said he has been scanning pictures from his dad's, Grandma's, and Grandpa's books that Grandma made and he also has some silent film from 1965 to 1970. I can't wait to see the finished product!

Here is a list of those who said they will be there so far:

2008-11-02T19:01:00.000-08:00

-Grandma
-Joyce and K.C.
-Karen
-Mary and Rob
-Tait, Heidi and 3 kids
-Diane and Frank
-Lyndsey, Reggie and 2 kids
-Kristen, Jeff and 4 kids
-Laura, Brent and 4 kids
-Todd, Jen and 5 kids
-Matt, Becky and 3 kids
-Randon and 2 kids
-Micah, Joye and 2 kids are 75% sure they are coming
-Garrick

That's a total of 49 so far! It's a party you will not want to miss out on!!!

Welcome!

2008-11-02T17:53:00.000-08:00

Hi Family! Welcome to our reunion blog. Anybody can post updates, comments, family announcements etc. as long as you responded to the invite to be an author. We went to the cabin today to check it out and we are getting excited about the reunion!