...I promise.
This is (probably) the last post
specifically about the reunion. Hey, I took 150 pictures while we were there, and it was the most exciting thing we've done in the last six months. So I have to say a little bit more, okay? This might end up being a post exclusively for my sister, who may be the only one interested. Thats a risk I'll have to take.
Each reunion in our family consists of a mixture of planned activities and free time. The earliest ones (circa 1991) seemed to have had every minute planned because all of the kids were under 12 years old and they could get bored easily. Some later gatherings were conspicuously
unplanned, as there was an abundance of teenagers who wouldn't have been happy doing crafts or relay races. There can be problems with an extreme in either direction, but I'm happy to say this reunion had the perfect mixture for me.
This year, many of the activities were centered around the three youngest cousins, those who were playing with Joshua in a previous post. We were late the first day, but apparently they were each given shields. They were told they'd have certain quests to complete each day, and when they were finished our Grandma (the queen) would give them jewels to put on their shields. At the end of everything, they were to be knighted. The clever thing was how all the rest of the family was included.

The boys had to trace people's feet for one quest; another was filling out a get-to-know you survey, where they had to ask people trivia like who had published their own comic, or who had gone skydiving. Their oldest brother and some of the youngest teens were enlisted to be their guides on the quest.
One day they got to treasure hunt with my dad at the park next door. They even got to help the three two-year-old girls make necklaces out of Fruit Loops. The girls were all excited about this activity and had a great time. Later that day, Joshua had an even better time eating all of them where they'd left them around the house!

Another afternoon, they had some relay races and other short competitions for the kids. Each little boy headed up a team of the teenagers and the twenty-somethings that aren't married. Everyone was a good sport, even during the water relay race when my brother Thain fell down and spilled his team's whole bucket of water, thus ruining their chances for the win. Poor Thain.

One cute thing they did was make little craft necklaces for all of the moms. They were out of those plastic beads that you put on a little form- like a circle or heart shape- then you iron it so that the beads all melt together. I got a cute little smiley face from one of the boys. A few of us were bored and made some of our own too. I made this one for Joseph:

Lovely, isn't it?
They had some activities separate from the boys' quest as well. The single girls and their friends (in age from 17 to 24) got to make small purses. One evening they had a white elephant gift exchange with everyone in attendance. Another afternoon they got all of the women together, and talked about how there are so many male family members so we deserved something special. We each were given a handmade bag full of girly items donated by different people, things like ankle bracelets, homemade wallets, fingernail polish, gum, and knitted bookmarks. Here is a photo courtesy of Kiera (my camera was being charged at the time.)

Then the boys got jealous, and took a picture to document the fact that they got nothing...except Joseph, who's holding a sandwich:

Something I sadly didn't get to participate in was geo-caching. My uncle brought ten extra GPS systems so everyone could go out looking for these geocaches together around the lake, which coordinates he'd loaded into the devices before the reunion. We were on our way when Elora suddenly got sick in the car and we had to turn back. We even had to make her a new cereal necklace, because the one she was wearing was now disgusting. (Don't worry, Joshua didn't eat that one!)
The remainder of our time was full of all the unplanned stuff that can be so fun. The aforementioned card games took place almost every night, either with everyone or in small groups..its become our one family tradition that we can't do without! (Sorry for the yellow photo..)

There were video games played by old and young alike (mostly the boys of course, though a few fiances did join in on occasion.)

And of course, all of the beach shenanigans. At first Elora wasn't sure she liked it:

But she soon came to enjoy her little entourage:

All of us got a chance to ride on our relative's boat, and even Elora and I got a tow in the inner tube being pulled by the boat. (
Pictured previously).
Oh yeah. And here's Kiera, looking like Bono from U2:

Okay, now I'm done talking about it. Thanks for hanging in there! ( You just skimmed through this, didn't you.)