Last week was the annual Swanson Family Reunion. Devin and I were in charge of it this year and we chose a nice cabin in Island Park. Everyone arrived on Saturday evening with homemade personal pizza--courtesy of grandma and grandpa. We settled in and prepared to enjoy each others company. The next morning we woke up-ate breakfast and began the day with our T-shirt craft. The kids worked on their own and the adults drew names again this year and decorated each others. It amazes me the amount of talent the family has and the amount of work even the men put into them.
Over the next couple of days were enjoyed playing games, eating, some went fishing and we had a marshmallow gun fight. Josh and Devin disappeared for hours one day to go fishing and ended up in some mountain pass that reminded them of the movie "Deliverance". They did make it back in time to put the kids to bed. ;-{
The adults had a Wii bowling tournament and decided to be nice and let the kids join in--BAD mistake---the kids eliminated almost all of the adults with Ashlyn and Devin being the finalists. Next year we need to have an adult only tournament and the kids can have there own. We decorated bird houses, tried to take family photos, roasted hot dogs and marshmallows, played the annual Risk game (with me and Josh being the final two and Josh taking over the world), and ate more food.
The cabin was nice and held all of us but it was quite dirty. We had a dead mouse under the bed the first night and caught another mouse the last night. We also had a smoke alarm go off (which was too high for us to get to) and a carbon monoxide detector decide to go off every 15 seconds at 2:30AM. After 30 minutes of that I stomped downstairs and pulled it from the wall-tried to get the battery out which caused it to go off non-stop. The stupid thing almost got thrown in the field until Devin tracked down a screw driver in our car to open it up and remove the old battery. EEEKKK!
Dan and Jen had to leave early due to football practice and unfortunately missed the "lake/beach" area we found just a short walk from the cabin. They also missed the leaches that infested the water and was attracted to Andelyn. That poor girl had them everywhere! She handled it like a pro-not even a scream-me on the other hand was grossed out and couldn't even touch them. I'm just glad Cortlynn was able to get hers off by herself. NASTY!
Overall we had a wonderful time and can't wait until next years family reunion. I hope you enjoy the following photos.
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| This is a wonderful shadowbox display my dad put together of my grandfathers WWII medals (including his purple heart) |
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| Scary Missionary Nicole was EVERYWHERE!!!! She would turn up in photos and outside your bedroom door or bathroom door. You had to be on your toes. |
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| The kids working on their shirts with the help of the moms. |
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| I was so proud of the little felt flowers I made for Jen's shirt. |
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| Too cute |
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| Just look at the concentration Josh and Devin have on their faces working on their T-shirts |
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| Tristan was SOOO tired he was asleep off the bed. |
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| Josh, Heather, Andelyn, Carys, and Clayton |
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| These two are so cute! |
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| Grandparents |
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| Even Nicole had a shirt-We should have taken a photo of the back---the siblings put their feet prints on it. |
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| Dan, Jen, Brayden, Ashlyn, and Bridger |
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| Devin, Christina, Cortlynn, Tristan, and Kyra |
The siblings tried to have a serious, straight faced photo---I think we just looked like dorks.
Grandparents with all of the grandkids--What a hand full
Here are all of our T-shirts. Most of these photos look more like Mug shots.
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| The Marshmallow guns were a huge hit! Adults included. Thanks to the adults their were more tears from the children because we would attack them with marshmallows. Children were trampled and a few adults ended up with welts. It was fun though--thanks grandpa and grandma. |
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| I don't know...... |
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| Kyra loves to lay down on stairs and Clayton decided to try it out too. |
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| Bird House craft |
The following photos are of the beach we found the last night. These photos were also taken BEFORE the leaches were discovered.
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| The sun was RED, but this turned out to be a pretty picture. |
