Spires Family

So our 2007 Eagar Family Reunion was a success! It was really good to spend time with all the Eagars (something that doesn’t happen too often); and what more appropriate place to do so than in Eagar, Arizona.

As Traci already mentioned in her blog, this was Emma’s first flight experience. We were unsure exactly how she would handle it, which had made us quite nervous. To add to our anxiety we flew on separate flights, so Traci was left to be Emma’s sole caretaker throughout this new experience. However, we are pleased to report that she was a little angel on all but one of her flights: the last one - she screamed the whole way up, and the whole way down. It served as a good trial run for our Spires Family Reunion in England this December. We can’t wait to see how she’ll do on a 13-hour flight :)

We spent the first few days of our trip with our friends Scott and Lacy and their gorgeous little girl Talie in Mesa. We know Scott and Lacy from Hawaii and it was really good to see them again – it brought back some really good memories. Thanks again guys!

Man is Phoenix hot!!! Not only was it 100 degrees but really humid too. I can’t imagine what we would have done without AC. I was lucky enough to play a couple of rounds of golf in these temperatures at some really cool courses. Scott joined me for one and we both did well and had a good time.

Traci’s highlight of our Phoenix leg was IKEA. For those of you who don’t know what IKEA is, it’s this massive warehouse-type furniture store with a ton of really cool home stuff at warehouse-type prices. We didn’t actually purchase anything, but had a lot of fun looking.

Next we were off to Eagar. It was a 4-hour drive so we took our time and enjoyed the desert surroundings. I had never been to Arizona before so this was a real treat for me. The first half of trip was spent passing one cactus of the other followed by a massive canyon, while the second half was at a much higher elevation so it became more forestry and a lot cooler. Eagar is at about 9000 feet above sea level so it was completely different to Phoenix. Carrie (Traci’s oldest sister) was kind enough to organize a rental cabin that could accommodate all 12 of us for the 3 nights that we were in Eagar. We spent a lot of our time just hanging out with each other, which was perfect. Fishing, playing cards, playing games etc. We were able to meet up with some of the Eagar’s in Eagar at a planned family BBQ as well as spend a good amount of time with Grandma Eagar and others in their homes. Kim (Traci’s other sister) put a great deal of effort into making this trip a valuable family history venture. She gathered and organized a ton of family pictures as well as collected family members thoughts and memories about their family experiences. Thanks Kim - there will be a lot of decedents that are going to be blessed for all that effort for many years to come.

“Eagar Daze”, a local annual festival-style event was another highlight of our time in Eagar. We were only able to make it to the evening’s festivities but enjoyed sharing some really good Navajo Tacos and picking up some $2 Eagar Daze T-shirts.

Family Reunions are the best! We are so glad that we got to spend this time with the Eagar family. Now we look forward to the spending time with the Spires family in December.

Till next time ...