The Most Amazing Family Reunion Evah!

Let me tell you about Brandon's AMAZING family. Brandon's dad has 11 siblings. All of them have quite a few kids each and many of the kids have quite a few kids each. This makes for a huge family and an insane family reunion. There were 185 people at this reunion. Out of that 185, 95 were adults made up of Brandon's Aunts and Uncles, cousins and their spouses. (If you do the math, that is one heck of a lot of children...) Before this reunion I had only met, in person, about 10 of these family members. Through Shade and blogs I have connected with a few more. I had heard about many more of them. Nonetheless, there were many strangers at this reunion. I had heard a lot about the great parties they throw, so I was really excited for it even though I didn't know anyone.

We left for Boise on Wednesday afternoon. We had an uneventful 5 hour drive to Idaho and then stayed the night there. The next morning we drove the remaining 5 hours to the Tri-Cities in Eastern Washington. We got to our hotel and found out they had upgraded us to a Suite! Pretty sweet! (Oh, I am so lame.) Our hotel was really nice! It was located right on a harbor on the Columbia River. The atmosphere and the views were amazing. I loved it! That afternoon the reunion started with a Temple session but we weren't there in time. That evening there was an adult dinner at one of the Aunt's homes. (All of these people have gorgeous back yards and the ALL have pools. Seriously. Every single one of them did. I'm so jealous.) When I got there people I didn't even know where hugging me, saying "hello" and calling me by name. I instantly felt so welcome. I do not have enough wonderful things to say about Brandon's family. Anyway, at the dinner the food was outstanding and the conversation was so hilarious you could have made a movie out of it. And it was really nice to eat without having to serve up a plate for the kiddos first!

The next morning started out with their traditional 5k fun run. It was really laid back and fun. There were awards for many different categories, running, biking, stroller pushing, etc. I came out of nowhere and surprised myself with a 26 minute 5k!!! I guess that's what running at 350 ft instead of 4500 ft will do to ya!

Friday was filled with the husbands going golfing, lots of swimming, kids crafts (the girls made flowers for their hair and the boys made rockets and shot them up into the air using this cool ... thing. Not really sure what it was but it shot those rockets high!), a roll making class and kayaking on the Columbia River!

Here's Caleb with his rocket:

They were the first ones in the pool!
Kayaking on the River




Father in law, Stan, Brother in law, Jordan, Brother in law, Jeremy and nephew Collin

That night we went to another one of Brandon's cousin's houses for a pizza and root beef float dinner. It was fun to continue visiting with everyone. Caleb liked riding the zip line after he finally got up the courage to try it.

Did I mention that Aubrey was SO incredibly good during the whole trip. She went straight to Grandma even though she has major stranger anxiety and she hasn't seen Grandma since she was a newborn. THAT was a miracle! She loved her Grandma! She napped when and where we wanted her to and was happy when she was awake. Every day she was napping at a different house and she was completely fine with it. We love her so much!!!
After dinner that night we went ice blocking on this huge hill. Caleb loved it! He didn't even complain once about hiking up the huge hill between runs!


The next morning started out with a 20 mile bike ride that Brandon went on at 6am. At 7am I did a boot camp class. Check out the location. That is the Columbia River behind us. Talk about gorgeous.

Check out this back yard. This is one of Brandon's Aunt's homes. This yard (and house for that matter) is amazing. I don't think I would ever do anything besides sit on this deck if this was my house.

A better picture of where we had boot camp in Aunt Phyllis' back yard.

After the exercise was the traditional "Brother's Breakfast". This is where my father in law and his brothers cook a big bacon, egg, pancake and sausage breakfast for everyone. Once again the food was outstanding! (Have a mentioned that everything at this reunion started on time? Talk about amazing planning in order to have everything begin in a timely manner with close to 200 people involved.)

After breakfast we went to check out from the hotel and then came back for the Amazing Race. One of Brandon's cousins planned an "Amazing Race" (like the tv show) around the Tri-Cities. This is a picture to TRY to show how many people where here, but this is only a SMALL fraction of everyone.

Someone had to jump to the bottom of the pool and Brandon was nominated. He didn't have a bathing suit so he went in in his clothes!

A few pictures of the race.



After the Amazing Race, we had a big barbecue and the traditional auction. Every reunion they do a huge auction where people donate items to be auctioned off in a silent and live auction. The proceeds go towards paying for the next reunion. I think it is a brilliant idea!

These four had such a good time together! Caleb, cousin Abby, Brynley, Cousin James.

Here's another shot to give you an idea of the amount of people. There were more people here than show up to many ward activities!!!

I almost cried as we were leaving because I didn't want to leave! The weekend went way to fast and I didn't get to talk to people near as much as I wanted to! I can't wait until 2011 when we get to do it again!

(Stay tuned for another blog post that will document the Seattle portion of out Washington trip)