Reunion: Family

A few weeks ago ODD’s family had their family reunion.  For those who don’t know ODD is #9 of 10 kids and the reunion only includes his parents and sibling and their families.  Altogether they total just over 50 people.  Since there are so many kids it’s hard to get everyone together all the time so we mostly just try for once a year at the summer family reunion.  We did really well this year and only missed one brother and his wife because they live a couple of states away.  She was pregnant and past her traveling time so they couldn’t make it.  Everyone else came for at least some amount of time and I think we all had fun.

Almost everyone came on Thursday night for dinner.  Wildman grilled chicken and we did a pot luck.  ODD set up our projector and we watched an outdoor movie before everyone headed to bed.  The Monday before the reunion ODD pulled out this teeny tent we got probably online someplace when we first got married.  It’s so small we never even bothered to open it until FHE that night.  We set it up in the living room and let the kids play in it for a while before dragging it upstairs to Peanut’s room.  She slept in it every night until the reunion.  We packed it up and took it with us thinking we might be able to talk Peanut into sleeping in it during the reunion to free up some space in our bigger tent.  She was more than happy to sleep in it by herself.  I was actually really surprised how well she did with it and was happy about it because it made getting Wingnut down easier because Peanut wasn’t right next to him pestering him while he tried to fall asleep.

On Friday morning, after breakfast, we were split into four teams.  Our little family was put on the orange team.  Each person was given a strip of colored fabric so we knew who was on each team.

How did they know to put me on the orange team so my fabric strip could match my orange shoes?

Our first activity was a GPS thing.  We were given clues and coordinates to different locations where we had to do certain things before getting our next clue.  We went to the local high school where me, ODD, and all his siblings went to school.  While there we had to figure out which adult family member graduated when before we could move on.  By each year there was a list of toys, films, and music that were popular at the time.  It was funny to read them all.  Another stop was at the local tabernacle.  ODD’s parents waited there and each grandchild was given a letter written to them by their parents.  ODD and I read the letters we’d written to Peanut aloud.  Wingnut was sleeping at the time.

(photo courtesy of my SIL, L)

The last stop was a miniature golf place.  All of us played a couple of rounds.  Peanut got a little plastic golf club to use and had fun knocking her ball around.  It was hilarious to watch.  When I asked her for her score after each hole she just told me whatever random number popped into her head at the time.  She had quite the score by the end.

(photo courtesy of Wildbound)

After the golf we went back to the house to have lunch before moving the festivities to a nearby church.  At the church we let the little kids run around and play games in the gym while the older kids played a get-to-know-you game.  Once everyone made it we played some team games in a family version of Minute to Win It.  I’ve never actually seen the show so I’m not sure how much it was like that but we all laughed a lot and made fools of ourselves frequently which is always great.

We laughed that Wingnut’s sporting the gangster look here.  One leg of his sweat pants is pushed up to his knee and the strip of fabric around his ankle is like the tracking ankle cuff thing.  The cups were left over from another game but Wingnut found them to be endlessly entertaining.

Each family made a 5 minute DVD of things their family has been doing over the last year and we watched half of them before dinner and half after.  It was cool getting to see everyone’s pictures and funny videos.  I hope we do it again at the reunion next year.  Our family was in charge of dinner with one of ODD’s sisters.  We made pulled pork burritos and they were so yummy.  After finishing the family movies we had a little testimony meeting.  It was nice because we don’t all live near each other and don’t get to hear one another’s vocalized testimony very often.  We didn’t have time for everyone to share but those who did shared some nice things.  After that we cleaned up the church and headed back to the house for bed.

Saturday brought more playing.  Most of the adults and older kids went rock climbing in a canyon and the little kids stayed at the house doing a dinosaur egg hunt.  It was basically a little treasure hunt that took us all over the yard and we collected pictures of dinosaurs along the way.  At the end we found some treats and did a little cake walk.  When the kids got tired of that we took them inside where they painted big smooth rocks to look like “dinosaur eggs.”  Peanut used so much paint it all turned muddy but still looked pretty cool.  Later, after some of the older kids got back, they broke open a pinata.  ODD pulled out his model airplane and flew that around in the field.  Then he shot off a bunch of model rockets like we did at the reunion last year.  While ODD was doing the rockets Peanut and Wingnut both climbed onto my lap at the same time.  It doesn’t happen very often that they’ll both stay there happily and just snuggle with me without torturing each other so I ate it up while I could.

After lunch everything sort of wound down and we all packed up our stuff and hit the road.  Planning the reunion is a big task but ODD’s brother who was in charge this year did a great job with is family.  Everything was well planned and I think everyone had a good time.