We had a great Fourth of July with the Merrick/Steiner clan.  Lee's Grandpa and his extended family is from Logan, Utah. And for the first time in several years, the Steiners gathered for a family reunion.  Unfortunately not all of Lee's siblings were able to make it - but we had a great time with those who did.  And I met lots of new family and Lee saw family he hadn't seen in 15 years!

The 24 hour reunion started off with a trip to the Logan Temple on Friday the 3rd.  It's a beautiful temple and we really enjoyed gathering there with the few family members who made it in time.  We then met up with everyone else (including Lee's brothers), BBQd and watched the fireworks.   For some crazy reason, Logan always does their fireworks on the 3rd of July....   When everyone turned in for the night - we headed out to Mendon to stay with my Aunt.  As always, it was great to see her.  AND we even were lucky enough to see my cousin Zander and his girlfriend the following morning for breakfast.  That was a fun surprise!

Saturday we paid tribute to the Steiner great grandparents.  We visited their graves, received family histories, and even sang and had b-day cake in honor of Grandma Fern's 4th of July b-day.  This weekend in Logan was also Cache Valley Cruisin'.  It's a fun old car show and parade.  We spent a few hours checking out the old and fun style pickups, coupes, thunderbirds, etc.  I'm definitely the one Merrick who doesn't know a thing about cars!  While they are all checking out the engines, make, model and year -- I just kept it to simply, "oh, that one is fun.  I think that one is cute...."  It's fun for me to see Lee with his brothers and seeing his Southern Idaho side come out....

The reunion ended sooner than Lee and I expected and everyone went their merry ways.  We brought Lee's mom and brothers out to my aunt's before they hit the road for home.  My Aunt has an 48' Chevy Pickup she wanted them to check out. But, the main reason was that she wanted them all there to sing happy b-day to me and enjoy cake and ice cream.  We wanted to keep them there all evening - we don't see enough of them.  Unfortunately, they had to get back...  They even skipped out on the Cruisin' Parade.   The parade is quite the affair in Logan.  People bring out chairs, awning, picnics and camp out on main street tor most of the day and the parade doesn't start until 6:30pm!

Sunday my aunt really wanted to get up to the house at Bear Lake -- and even though we had plans in SLC at 5:30pm, we darted up for a couple hours. We were in the car longer than we were at the lake - but it was worth it.  We love Bear Lake!  It got us super excited for the Cousin's Weekend at the end of the month.  We were happy to have spent time with my Aunt, get a dip in the lake and Lee even got roasty-toasty red in just 45 minutes!

Our wonderful weekend ended with an evening at the Gottfredsons.  We stayed at their house before our insanely early flight this morning.  We had dinner and played with their CUTEST three kids.  Lee even made a periscope with their oldest.  We had a lot of fun.  AND They make parenting look easy... Merrillee is my idol.

We had a really wonderful 4th of July weekend.  For as tired as we are today, it was surprisingly relaxing.  We love seeing family and wish it happened more often!  Of course we took a few pictures -- but this time there truly are only a FEW!