Eyrealm Reunion 2026: You Are a Star

Welp, it happened. The 2026 Eyre reunion came and went and I breathed a huge sigh of relief when it was over.

Wait, did I just say that out loud? Ha! Honestly, it was pretty awesome to get to be in charge (we rotate each year who is in charge and it was our family’s turn), and my parents have set up the location in such a way that it weeds out so much of the logistical stuff. But also, it is a lot of work to organize and come up with ideas to host 50+ people. I was SO grateful for all the ideas from the Instagram community on my idea request there to help us think through all the options. Thank you!

There is nothing like gathering at Bear Lake. I think it’s so incredible that our parents have created this place that makes all of our eyes shine. Is it the actual place or is it the people who gather there? I think it’s a bit of both.

This place that has cradled us for over fifty years now, and is chock-full of memories.

And it takes our breath away with its ever-changing beauty.

And now it’s filling two new generations with memories.

Yes not only our kids, but the now three great-grandchildren. (My niece had a baby boy who we all fell in love with.) I love this photo when lots of the kids got to meet him for the first time:

Our Theme for 2026

I already wrote about some of the reunion prep work and how we determined what our “theme” would be. I explained a little bit there, but here’s why we chose “You Are A Star”:

• We loved the idea of stars being held together by the gravitational force of the universe
• Each star is unique as are each of us, and it’s beautiful when we share our light as we develop (and figure out) our own talents and gifts
• My brother who lives by us here in the desert is a star guru, has a telescope and knows so much about the glory of the expanse of the universe, and we wanted to include him
• We wanted to link back to past generations who were “stars” in their own ways paving the way for us to shine in our own ways
• Each of us, through shining our own lights, is paving the way for future generations to be stars, too

I loved how Eyres show up. They are STARS in every form. From helping move the tv and speaker to creating such great meals to leading discussions and being so supportive, the best hype people. Boy I love my family.

Ok, so on to what we did and how this reunion rolled out…here we go.

The Opening Ceremony

The opening ceremony is where we always introduce the reunion “theme” and schedule. And it’s always in the same spot. We put on a little song and dance complete with party poppers and Murphy dressed up as the “star.”

Can you see her up there on the left?

We shared the video I had made with AI to have our old ancestor photos “talk” about the reasons they were “stars:”

(I shared some of those in my reunion prep post.)

Grace introduced the calendar she had whipped up:

Here’s a close-up photo of that:

Abby introduced the t-shirt idea:

(That’s another thing I talked about in the last post, but when we were debating on what to do for t-shirts she came up with the idea to have everyone make their own. Which was a grand hit. More on that below.)

Unfortunately, Elle, Carson and Lu couldn’t make it that first night, and Claire couldn’t come at all (she was in NYC for her summer internship). We missed her but were so glad for her help planning beforehand!

This opening ceremony deal was all great, but honestly, we could have just sat there and looked at the sunset and that would have taken care of the “magic” that night.

Can you even believe how gorgeous that sky is as a backdrop?

That is for real with no filters. Man alive, that deep fuchsia summer sunset that first night to welcome us all officially to the reunion was definitely one for the books.

The Music Bonfire

As per usual, we headed down for the bonfire once that gorgeous color faded behind the mountains and the night sky ushered in.

Max played everyone’s favorite songs they had sent him, and we guessed who’s song was who’s. When he played your song, you got to tell everyone one thing you did that was brave this last year. (An idea from the Instagram list.) I loved that so much, it gave everyone an opportunity to share something they may not have shared otherwise.

Then s’mores and a dance party with all that new music.

“Mystery Activities”

Maybe my biggest concern with hosting the reunion was having my kids take the lead. I mean, they’re all adults and I wanted them to take the ball and run with it. And do you know what? Those kids came through with flying colors.

I love that the kids had the idea to each come up with their own idea as to one activity to be in charge of. The idea (Abby’s awesome at thinking of these things) was to pop a balloon with glitter in it to find out what each mystery activity was. With all the commotion we didn’t quite get to that, but the mystery activities worked. I want to share what they were so we can remember:

Abby’s Reunion T-Shirt Craft Project

As I mentioned before, when we were deep in discussion about what to do for a t-shirt Abby had the make-your-own-t-shirt idea and I’m telling you right now, it was the hit of the whole reunion. Here she is explaining how to do it:

And here everyone is getting to work:

I loved that every nook and cranny of that big gathering room was filled up with creators and artists that first morning, and then seeing everyone stitching away throughout the next few days.

Abby brought supplies galore, from all kinds of cute fabrics to iron-ons to thread, needles, fabric paints and stamps…she even brought beads you could sew in.

Some of the kids got busy and with the help of their parents, created some pretty cool stuff speedy-quick:

Others hemmed and hawed over what to do, and got so creative in the process!

I loved watching everyone stitch away on those letters, and connect while waiting in line for the two ironing boards to get things situated.

This was a kind of fun activity because people could work on their shirts any time they had down-time through the whole reunion.

They stitched during our family gatherings at night:

And even worked late into the nights when everyone had gone to bed.

And boy, they came up with some great stuff!

(“GF” is for Grandfather, of course, and I loved Eli’s Bear Lake rendition on his.)

Grace’s Candy Salad

For Grace’s activity, she reached out to everyone before the reunion and asked them to bring their favorite candy.

She gathered everyone together around a huge bowl and when it was their turn, they went and dumped their candy in the bowl. She asked each person a quick question (a list of questions she found online), and it was fun to hear their answers.

Everyone, especially the kids, were pretty excited about the results of all that goodness:

Elle’s Yoga Sculpt Class

Elle, Carson and Lu arrived very late at night after that first day, and got to work on their own Mystery Activities. Elle led the best yoga sculpt class that everyone got into:

Everyone loved it so much that it was back by popular demand the next morning.

Dave’s Golden Egg Activity

Dave decided that for his activity he’d hide three golden eggs with some cash in them around the property. He hid them in hard places but gave some little clues throughout. I loved hearing the kids discuss how they could find those things working together throughout the time we were there. Here’s Dave giving a new clue:

Carson’s Service/Work Project

Carson decided to do a little work project, making it fun for everyone to pitch in to do some things that my parents were so excited to get done. He came all prepared with the task lists and the rules and made it a pretty fun game.

And everyone really showed up to work their little tails off in their assigned groups.

There were lots of winners in this activity: the winning team as well as getting out enough weeds that Etta found one of the golden eggs, WooHoo!

Max’s Beach Games

Max orchestrated some great beach games and contests.

He divided us all into teams and included Eyre trivia, who could hold the plank the longest, the kids had to run backwards as fast as they could, a handstand contest and “king of the tube.” He did such a great job at getting everyone engaged.

My Guessing Game

For my activity, I had everyone write on a slip of paper something they had done that no one else would really know about. They put those papers in a bowl, and I read them one by one and had people guess who did what. There were some pretty hilarious stories in there, as well as a whole slew of poop stories. Ha!

Lucy’s Game Night

Of course Lucy wanted to do a game night for her mystery activity. And she sure pulled off a great one.

Her game night included people playing “One and Done” from the tables all across the kitchen counter in the midst of Char preparing lentil tacos for her meal the next day. These blurry take-outs from videos will have to do for documentation:

(If you want to know how to play “One and Done,” one of our family favorites, scroll down to the end of my games for a crowd post for how we do it.)

The loser has a pre-determined consequence, and this time it was peanut butter on the face for the dogs to lick off (we have FOUR dogs in our family now, which is kinda crazy). Peter was a great sport laying there with his face smeared with peanut butter.

Lucy also led a game that I can’t remember the name of, where you have to do a different thing each time a number is said when people count off. If you get it wrong you’re out.

I loved watching the crowd get smaller and smaller getting down to the winner.

How We Manage Reunion Food

This is always a big question when we talk about the reunion. Food is one of our favorite things, and we’ve come up with a pretty great reunion food system. (Lots of our favorite recipes linked on that post.)

This year was no different…

Every family puts a lot of pride into their one meal they’re in charge of.

And we all love gathering to eat it at sunset.

Annual Tennis Tournament

We put my dad in charge of the annual tennis tournament this year. So he decided on “tennis triples” which was a fun twist in the plot.

We play tennis at this old cabin where we grew up spending our summers and it holds so many people and memories.

My favorite part wasn’t the triples tournament though, it was watching my dad play with different groupings of Dave and my kids. SO fun to watch!

Murphy & Ada Love

I cannot even begin to express how dear it is to watch those cousins cradle my two grandbabies in love and awe, an arm around them, teaching them things, holding their hands up the hill back to the Bamboo house.

McKay’s Missionary Return

We have had five missionaries out serving for the last year. Two got home right before the reunion, and one, McKay, arrived home from Puerto Rico smack-dab in the middle of the reunion. This is such a sacred thing for a family – the safe arrival home of a missionary after having been gone for two years. So it was pretty special we got to kind of share it. His family drove down to the airport to greet him:

Then they drove right back up to the lake where we were all waiting with signs and banners to welcome him home. These are the other two recently returned missionaries waiting for him on the right below:

McKay ran right through all those banners and straight down to jump in the lake…his family following in so much glee.

So of course, everyone else followed too and there was joy jumping through the air.

I loved how the light looked coming from the inside of all those people splashing in the water as well as how it looked, rich and saturated on the horizon across the lake.

This has nothing to do with McKay’s return, but boy I love this little family:

A Patriarchal Blessing Walk

One thing on the schedule for anyone who wanted to join was a “patriarchal blessing walk” up the mountain behind where we stay. A patriarchal blessing is something we get in our church that provides spiritual guidance and love. Something that I think has the power to help us recognize our spiritual gifts and potential in life. Such a good thing to study if you want to know how you, uniquely, can learn to be a star and shine your own unique light. Hence the idea to hike up a mountain at sunset and share any parts of your own personal blessing you’d like to share.

I loved standing there on that mountaintop with that dusky lake as a backdrop with so many of my favorite people discussing different things in our own patriarchal blessings that we love and that have helped us, or that we hope will help us going forward.

The missionaries.

Missionary Devotionals & A Homecoming

Since we had three freshly returned missionaries, we had them each give a devotional one night before dinner. It’s amazing what a mission can do for young adults and I was in awe at each of them standing there so composed with such confidence and light and goodness. They each shared such great insights.

We have been going to the same ward (church congregation) since we were little. It’s in Dingle, Idaho and they were nice enough to invite these three missionaries to give spiritual messages during sacrament meeting. Their dads sang a song with them too, which was pretty sweet.

Two Baptisms in the Lake

The baptisms!!! Two of the grandkids were baptized this summer.

After church we had a sacred meeting at the pavilion.

I think Murphy could feel the specialness of it all.

Earnest dads and sweetly anticipating kids.

White wading into the sparkling water.

I loved that ALL these people have been baptized in that same lake over all these years:

That’s a pretty special club!

Then on up to the Lighthouse for the confirmations.

And gathering.

I LOVE when we were leaving I found these kids like this with Murphy:

Other Highlights I Want to Remember

Tal’s discussion about shadow work, all of us in a circle on the beach with a mist of rain and the colors of the lake deep and soulful (Tal is SUCH a great discussion leader, I’m so excited for his forum in Switzerland coming up!). Noah’s discussion of “crazy” at the pavilion.

Saydi’s meditation following Elle’s sculpting class…the clouds low and stretched to provide just enough coverage from the relentless sun for us to really FEEL that ball of light guiding us that the meditation talked about.
Snippets of good talks with my inlaws, my dear Mom’s tireless Grammie camps, Grandfather and his “secret” rocks at meals, huge pots of delicious food, food choppers saddling up to the kitchen island to help in that steamy kitchen, chunky SWEN filling up our hearts.

Talks with my nieces and nephews who are growing up so quickly and becoming incredible versions of themselves…and my friends.

Gatherings at the “lighthouse” led by my parents and surrounded with so many photos and stories of ancestors.

Some of these ancestors look SO much like the kids who fill up the lake these days!

The beach strewn with people I love basking in all that beauty.

Sneaking away for boating excursions on our ancient ski boat whenever we could find a minute.

Different groupings of adults and kids all wrapped up together.

Late nights on the talking couch, and one more late push with t-shirts surrounding the kitchen table with Aja and girls, sacred talking time deep into the night
Josh’s star night, a group of us standing around the dim red light and a cluster of interested teenagers surrounding his telescope equipment, his laser pointer showing us the best things in that vast expanse of stars

An incredible private music concert one evening with my mom’s second cousin once removed (or something like that!) who has started the most amazing Salt Lake Chamber Orchestra. She and her husband are so incredibly talented!

Jonah’s “the spirit of God like a fire is burning” at testimony meeting (after church on Sunday) as an answer to my plea for my siblings to share how they feel God. (Not a fire for Jo). I sat there in that testimony meeting feeling like my heart would surely explode that I have all these giants of love paving the way for my children who were sitting there listening, their mother willing each word shared to take hold and plant seeds in their hearts.

A sigh of relief with one more confetti popper as the troops pulled out to Oregon. (A trip my brothers take all the kids to do after the reunion each year.)

Who looks this excited when they’re heading out to camp in the wilderness for three days with 30+ kids??

My brothers do, that’s who.

You can read all about this Oregon tradition over here.

All the cousin goodbyes.

A crowded and gorgeous sail with no wind with the giver Jared.

An afternoon on the boat with Sayds, all of us waterskiing in that vast expanse of gorgeousness we call Bear Lake, and a genetic testing discussion at the pavilion.

The drive back down to the valley with Dave, Elle and Grace.

That was a LOT, am I right? But I’m always leaving wanting more. Our “post-party-wrap-up” in the car en route back to real life made up for my missing: hearing all the beautiful observations from my girls, their adoration for each cousin and aunt and uncle, that car just filling up to the brim with love and admiration for this larger family they get to be part of.

I’m so grateful they FEEL it: how lucky they are. Deep in their bones.
As do I.

Dear Mom and Dad, THANK YOU for making all this possible.

Love you forever.

And thank you, Bear Lake, for cradling us in your sacred ground one more year.

For all our reunion resources, ideas, games, food, and recaps from years past, visit our Family Reunion Ideas hub page.