"Hands Up" Reunion!

Rick was involved in Utah State University's "Hands Up" group in 1989-1991 (the same time I was on my mission).  Hands Up was a performing group that incorporated American Sign Language with dance.  Rick was President of Hands Up his first year and Vice President his second year.  He had the opportunity to travel to Korea, Japan, Hawaii, and on a cruise.  I loved watching the group perform and was planning on auditioning right after I returned from my Sign Language mission.  But unfortunately due to budget cuts, 1991 was the last year the group performed together.  It was because of Hands Up that Rick started to learn American Sign Language.  There were a few members of the group that were deaf and Rick learned most of his sign language through his association with them.  Little did he know that his future wife was also learning sign language at the very same time on an ASL mission and that twenty years later he would be serving as Branch President for a Deaf Branch!

Members of this group continue to be some of our dearest friends.  Rick thought it would be a fun idea to plan a 20 year reunion.  We got together with Eric and Kerianne Hoth and with JulieAnn Banks Peery in order to plan the event.  The planning process started just a couple of months ago and several people already had planned vacations during that time.  But we had about five families there and it was great to see everyone and to get acquainted with everyone's children as well.  The kids all made fast friends with each other and were soon scurrying off to play volleyball, horse shoes, Snorta, go hiking, and so forth.  They stayed up and played Mafia until it started raining enough to send everyone off to their tents.   Everyone had a great time and adamantly agreed not to wait too long before having another reunion!

Here are a couple of pictures from the Hands Up group:

Pictures from the reunion: