Family Reunion - Tife Ranch



Tife Ranch Lodge



Allen- Slide Show

 We left for Utah last Friday October 8th for a family reunion in Morgan, Utah at the Tife Ranch.  My brother Allen had been telling me about the Ranch for quite some time.  Robert and his wife Ange are the owners of the ranch.  Robert and Allen served in the Great Lakes Mission back in the 70's.    Robert was the owner of  the Robert's Craft stores in Utah, until  he sold out the franchise a while back. The top picture is Robert and Ange's home, and they call it the lodge. If I am remembering right it is 15,000 sq. feet.  We stayed on the bottom floor of the home, and it was a full sized apartment and used by the owners as a family room.  We couldn't believe how beautiful it was.  It had a small kitchen, two big bedrooms, a full sized bathroom with granite counter tops and a family room with a huge TV in it.  Allen and his wife stayed in a bedroom upstairs next to Robert and Ange's bedroom.  It was hard for me to believe that they would share there home with complete strangers.  All we had to do was donate money to stay there.  The donations go to the different charities that Robert and Ange support. They do a lot of good things with their charities.

The ranch has a large pavilion and that is where we had the reunion.  Again we were amazed at how it was furnished.  Granite counter tops, an over sized stove, warming oven, huge gas grill, two stainless steel dishwashers, and two kitchen sinks, and a huge stainless steel refrigerator.  On the outside of the pavilion was two full sized bathrooms all tiled, granite tops, and a nice shower.  The bathrooms were off from a utility room with a big front load washer and dryer.  You would have to see it to believe all the deluxe furnishing. 

There were three cabins, if that is what you want to call them.  They were fully furnished to the max.  Just no running water.  There was another small pavilion that had bathrooms for the people staying in the cabins, and of course fully furnished. 

Allen gave a really neat slide show of the family genealogy and I learned things that I didn't know about our family.  It seemed like all we did was eat as Joyce and Allen did a pulled pork dinner Friday night for those of us that were there to spend the night.  Then Saturday morning they did breakfast of pancakes, eggs, omelets, bacon, sausage, and orange juice.  It was delicious.  Then for lunch Allen grilled hamburgers and hot dogs, and there was a potato salad that I had brought.  There was all the trimmings for the hamburgers along with a big green salad, and a fruit bowl.  No one left hungry.


Bret & Sierra

  I was disappointed that Laura and Sherry couldn't make it.  As usual things came up for several people and they couldn't make it.  Allen planned the reunion around a cousins schedule, and he ended up not being able to come with his family.  Then Joyce's brother and his family left early Saturday as they were given football tickets for the BYU game that day.  So the reunion ended up being small.  Bret and Sierra left right after we had lunch, as they had a long trip to make back to Overton.

It seemed like every time I looked in the kitchen, Joyce was working her hinny off.  I did help her clean up after breakfast.  I told her that I didn't ever want to see her work that hard at a reunion again, and that if we ever had another one, we should change it so no one had to work so hard.  She said that she had told Allen no more reunions, and  Allen agreed.  I don't blame them at all.  She is on Chemo treatments for lung cancer, and even though she was in between treatments, I feel that it was way too much work for her, and Allen too.  So I doubt there will be any more reunions, maybe just a family get together.

Uncle Don and his son Roger

Old Picture of Grandpa and Grandma Luker



Uncle Don & Frank



Sherry, her husband & Frank

 I was taking pictues and my sunglasses were in the way and as I was trying to put them on my head, I dropped my camera and it hit the hard cemet floor.  So I didn't get to take as many pictues as I wanted.  My camera was broken and had to be thrown away, but the memory card was okay.  I now have a new camera as I ordered one from Costco and it is similar to the one I had so I won't have to take a lot of time learning how to use it.  It does have some new features that I will have to learn how to use, like tagging pictues, and downloading right to my blog or to my facebook. 

It was nice to see my cousin Sherry and her husband. She had brought a family picture that was of her family with our grandpa and grandma Luker.  It was a much younger grandpa and grandma. Frank took a pictue of it with my camera. 
My Uncle Don came with his son Roger. Uncle Don is 88 years old and is senile.  I loved seeing him, and one time he broke out in a song we sing in our church.  "Give me some stout hearted men"  His last name is Stout.  He said his father used to sing that all the time. We got a kick out of it, and had a good laugh.

Joyce Luker in the kitchen

After we helped clean up the pavilion, we headed back to Salt Lake.  We drove over a beautiful mountain called East Canyon and enjoyed the scenery and fall leaves.  After we checked into our hotel room, we crashed for a while and then headed over to Allen and Joyce's home to take some things back to them that they didn't have room for in their car.  We visited for a while, and then headed back to our hotel for the night.  We left the next morning after having breakfast at The Cracker Barrel and had a nice trip home.

Ryan and Mellisa Luker