Thanksgiving & a Family Reunion

DISCLAIMER: This blog is like a journal for us so this post is a doozy!

Our 2009 Thanksgiving was spent in Idaho with my family for a Gardner Reunion. If you didn't know, my family goes crazy for our family reunions and all of the fun, silly games we play along with tons of visiting and YUMMY food. Any family who calls their grandma "Sweettooth" and great grandma "Gigi" has got to be a little silly.

The 16 hour drive up there was a little stressful and consisted of over 4 hours of uninterrupted screaming from Graham and 2 diaper explosions resulting in one child strapped in his car seat wrapped in a blanket in freezing temperatures (because a change of clothes was inaccessible in the suitcases). But I am happy to say that we would do it over any time because the reunion was worth going through that drive.

I am so lucky to have such an awesome family! We had 3 days of fun, fun, fun. Here are some highlights.

Uncle Mark winning the Biggest Turkey Pageant

Kara strutting her stuff in the Turkey Pageant

Turkey Bowl
Some of the Thanksgiving food before Thanksgiving Dinner. (The dinner was DELICIOUS too!!!) We ate all day, and then ate some more, and then ate some more... and then had pie for dessert.

Our Thanksgiving Day parade
Grandma Sweettooth with our family. Keegan was not up for a picture with Gigi - a little grumpy.

We ate Thanksgiving Dinner at the Rose Ward church building because our family is so big now. Uncle Lance and Aunt Linda brought in bouncy houses on the stage for all the great grandkids. We played crossword puzzles and word searches about our family, the little girls got makeovers and made tutus, and the little boys made light sabers and had a Jedi tournament. Keegan thought that was cool! The kids put on a little "parade" around the cultural hall with the "floats" they made from boxes and costumes. Then they played dodgeball in the cultural hall.

All the "big" boys went outside and played football on the lawn of the church. It was cold! We are not used to the snow but it was a refreshing change. Keegan said he liked to be "chilly".

The next day we all met at the Blackfoot Inn breakfast room and headed out for a serious scavenger hunt all over town. Our groups had to find crazy stuff and take pictures of our entire team with the item to get points for it and then race to the bowling alley to turn in our photos as proof. Some of our finds were a farm animal and extra points if someone was on the animal (we found a horse and put little Andrew Gardner on it), a police officer and extra points if someone was handcuffed, a green boulder, a slide with everyone on it, etc. My team was the first one back but we came in second - another team beat us out in points.

Then we spent a couple of hours bowling our hearts out with the whole alley reserved for the family. We love to bowl.

That night was swimming at the hotel. The best part was little kids running outside to make snow angels and then running inside steaming to jump in the heated pool. There was a snowball fight in the pool too! We had a chicken dinner and another "Guess Who" Gardner trivia game. Then the guys and kids headed to Robyn and Doug's house for a Wii and Rock Band night while the girls all went to Jamie and David's house for a scrapbook night. The gals have been working on a big scrapbook of all of Grandma and Grandpa's photos. It has been a great way to learn more about our family history and preserve the photos of my grandparents courtship and life together. It has also been neat to scrapbook photos of my Aunt Jana Gaye and learn more about the darling girl who passed away as a toddler. Seeing all the photos of my mom and Aunts and Uncles as awkward teenagers has been awesome too!

Saturday we all drove to Idaho Falls where there was a video game place (like a Dave and Buster's) reserved and played video games, drove bumper cars, and played in the playland. Of course we ate too - lots of pizza! The time flew by because we were having so much fun.

That night we all went to Robyn and Doug's new home (so awesome of them to have our WHOLE family over when they moved in only a days before) for an old fashioned Gardner Christmas Eve party since we were all together. Dustin compiled old family movies and photos of christmases gone by into a DVD for everyone. When we saw Grandpa dancing around and talking on the video there were hardly any dry eyes (he passed away in 1991). That will be a family treasure! We had good food, a white elephant gift exchange for grown ups, the traditional pinata, a nativity, christmas caroling, and a visit from Santa.

During the nativity I left Keegan with the other kids in a sheep's costume and then when it was his turn Keegan jumped out, no costume on, with a "gun" and starting making shooting noises at everyone in the room. OK - he is Andy's son!! Leave it to my little guy to be irreverent and jump out with a fake gun. I guess he gets the love of firearms from his father.

The weekend was so full and we loved every minute of it. We were so sad to go home and leave the family members that we love so much. Thanks to Jamie, Robyn, Jalane, Linda, Jerri Lu, Summer, Melody, and everyone who worked so hard to make the reunion so memorable.