Family Reunion at the Cabin - July 9-11.
Grandma's Safari.
On Friday night we started with the first round of tie-dying. Christina brought the supplies, and most of the shirts, for everyone to do this. She is awesome. Frankie seemed uninterested in the whole thing, but he ended up being a bit obsessed with the shirt I made him.
Frankie had his first exposure to Ipads on this trip. He is a fan.
Grandma's Safari.
On Friday night we started with the first round of tie-dying. Christina brought the supplies, and most of the shirts, for everyone to do this. She is awesome. Frankie seemed uninterested in the whole thing, but he ended up being a bit obsessed with the shirt I made him.
That night Chrissy and I went to work rinsing the first batch of T-shirts. Some of the dyes were really strong, and some people had used a lot. The water in the washing machine was looking very colorful, even though we had rinsed the shirts first. We decided we'd better take them out - and we discovered that every single shirt was now pink. We were in hysterics as we tried to figure out how to fix it, and most of the shirts in this batch were for males. The funny thing is that Soren wanted pink. I helped him with his shirt, but only put a little pink on it - because I didn't want to make his Dad mad at me. And somehow his was one of the few shirts that didn't make it into the washer before we discovered what was happening. We developed a better rinsing system for future shirts, and the next day Chrissy used bleach to mostly fix our errors.
Frankie had his first exposure to Ipads on this trip. He is a fan.
We had a birthday party for Ashley:
My Mom had prepared this reunion to be Safari themed - there were scavenger hunt and sample gathering kits for all the kids. It was all laid out so cute and ready to go when they came in:
The cupcakes ready for dessert, and main course lunch plates with pepperoni buns:
Grandma would have a place for them to go (like the grasslands or the jungle) and then they would find or get a part of their lunch. First it was carrot sticks:
Then they went on a bear hunt with Aunt Laurie:
And had cheese and crackers:
Ready to head to the jungle:
Frankie giving Grandpa Frank a high five on the way back.
Running inside to escape the rain in the wetlands! We went to this area twice and both times it rained.
Back in the cabin, at the end of the safari, the kids got to make marshmallow guns.
And fire them into targets if they wished:
As of this reunion, the basement officially became a rocking place at the cabin. It's got wall to wall carpet made up of various rugs and scraps, and Greg brought up a big sectional couch. There's a bunch of toys down there for the kids to play with - which makes being upstairs during the day so much more pleasant. On Saturday night the 10 and up set partied in the basement until late at night, without bothering anyone upstairs. It was so much fun.
Fooseball:
I set my auto-timer to take twenty shots. Don't tell anyone, but this was the very first picture and I think it's the best one.
And these are the last five in sequence. As you can see - 20 shots was pushing it.
Afterwards all my sisters families wanted some family pictures of sorts. Something happened to Hunter... and he really wanted to show off all of his tie-dye. Even his new underwear.
Here he is looking like the shameful brother that Melisa's family usually hides in the closet:
And, yeah. Laurie's face shows how all of us looked.
All the pictures I took of him were blurry because I was laughing so hard.
He even made an appearance in the background of Christina's family shot. (As a side note, I attempted to make Ryan's jeep tie-dye shirt. Tie-dye is not very cooperative.)
Jeremy beat Jeff, fair and square, in the Fooseball Tournament this year. He was quite proud of himself. It is amazing to me how quickly Jerm can become good at something. Anything. I swear. Mayzie was the kids division champ, and here they are with their trophies.
And there were s'mores to be made:
Our family picture before heading home. Back lit and all. It was such a fun weekend.
