Family Reunion 2012 - Friday, July 20th

Some say that less is more.  You will not find that sentiment here.  I realize the number of pictures is probably excessive, especially considering that there were usually 3 or four cameras snapping activities simultaneously, but I have edited the day down as far as I wish to.  Every picture tells a story.  Here's my take on the third day of our family reunion.

Our morning activity was a guided tour along a section of the Missouri River explorers Lewis and Clark named "The Gates of the Rocky Mountains."  I've been on this tour probably a half dozen times throughout my life but not in the past decade and my children have never been.  I was excited that they would get a bit of Montana river history.  Is it weird that I'm proud that the headwaters of the Missouri River are found in Montana?  Somehow, growing up in the state that contains the confluence of the Gallatin, Madison and Jefferson rivers into the longest river in the United States made me feel extra cool.  Almost like a personal friend of the explorers and Sacajawea, their Native American guide.  Nerdy.

We were a large group and filled up the back of one of the tour boats.  We decided to show a united front by all wearing our reunion t-shirts.




These are my favorite people!



Maureen and Jon





The cousins tend to form groups.  Here is what I call the middle trio.  Owen, Sam and Ian.




My gorgeous mother.



Seth and his trendy flat-billed cap next to Ansel and Brendan.  At least it's a BYU cap.  You can't be too gangster with cougar gear.



The start of the tour.  So pretty.

I was a little disappointed that our guide was more interested in the ecology of our tour than the history of its exploration.  He did touch on some journal accounts of Meriwether Lewis but most of his information focused on the formation of the limestone cliffs on either side of the river, and the wildlife that makes the protected wilderness its home.  Some of the natural formations were really interesting.  See if you can find the elephant...





The monster...




The devil's slide...




There are also several nests of Bald Eagles.  He explained how the feathers on this magnificent bird change colors and how eagles under the age of 3 actually appear more gold on their heads than white.  When one of the visitors of the tour noticed an eagle in the tree, our guide guessed we were looking at a three year old because of the still visible gold streaks on its head.





There was also some ancient pictographs.




Norman MacLean wrote a book about a tragic Mann Gulch fire that killed 13 smoke jumpers after getting caught in the middle of the blaze.  Their tragedy influenced firefighting techniques that are still used today.



Now, finally, we get to these famous gates.  Below, you will see what Lewis and Clark would have witnessed traveling upstream while searching for the headwaters.  They saw these cliffs, which are much different from the northeastern terrain in which they had been traveling.  As they traveled closer they saw these cliffs....opening.






And there you have it.  The Gates of the Mountains.

Now, for some brief pictures of adorableness










He was fussy on this two hour boat tour.  Thankfully, or not depending on how you view things, there was a much louder fussy toddler that distracted anybody noticing our own little man's whines.  And, then, with about ten minutes left, he finally fell asleep.

On the drive back, you get a great view of one of my favorite landmarks, The Sleeping Giant.



Can you see him?   This is as easy as it gets.

My parents had reserved their church building from 2 until 9 and most of the older boys went as soon as they could to play basketball for the afternoon.  The rest of us did whatever until we all made it over to the church at about 5.  While Emily and my mom prepared the Spaghetti dinner, the rest traveled down the street to the state capitol building for some organized group shots.  You can see how well ours went and really see the personalities of our boys in these pictures.

Seth is almost always arm linking.  He's a toucher.  Sam likes to pose.  And Henry...well....Henry has his own thing going on most of the time.

This time, he had a slinky won at the family Jeopardy game.  He couldn't understand why we didn't want it in our family pictures.



Seth touching, Sam posing, Henry slinking and Jay asks for the slinky.



Big brother Sam takes it from him and passes it along.



And a happy family picture is the result.



We encourage him to forgive us and join the family.



There.  But the one single picture doesn't tell the story!



The grandkids in front of the beautiful Capitol.



Now in order of age but definitely not height.  From left to right:
Daniel (7 months - me), Sadie (5 - Jen), Henry (6 - me), Natalie (7 - Jon), Erin (7, Emily), Owen (8 - Jen), Ian (9 - Emily), Sam (me - 9), Jonas (10 - Jen), Alyssa (11 - Jon), Connor (11 - Emily), Seth (12 - me), Ansel (13 - Jen), Caleb (one day shy of 14 - Jon), Brendan (14 - Emily)



Grandpa with his grandkids

After walking back to the church with Daniel on his shoulders, Jay came in to show me Daniel's new favorite chew toy.  Some ear cartilage:)





























We had a lovely spaghetti dinner. Because four if the group require gluten-free meals, we had both regular noodles and gluten-free noodles. We also had gluten free bread and french bread plus both kinds of chocolate cake for dessert.




These girls were always so cute with Daniel.



Now, for the talent portion of the evening.  One thing I love about my husband is vision of grandeur.  For a bit of back story, Jay had only recently discovered the catchy tune, "I'm Sexy and I Know It."  He watched and loved a YouTube spoof of it called, "I'm Farming and I Grow It."  It must have been the inspiration for his and Seth's surprise talent.  Because they weren't with us, I had no idea what was up his sleeve.  After their hilarious performance, he shared with me a bit of the process.  Apparently, for research sake, he downloaded a copy of the lyrics with Seth to use to go off of.  He admitted it was a big mistake.  Then, looking for inspiration for some dance moves, they watched the original video.  Yikes.  Their version was much more appropriate and so, so great.  It got the talent show off to a fantastic start.





I have to say that I hate posting video.  Mine are ALWAYS pixel-y and I don't know why.  I don't know if it's because of where I live but I don't understand how something that looks perfect on my computer looks like crap on YouTube and I can't post anything to my blog except by embedding it from YouTube.  The video link doesn't ever work.  Anyways, the quality isn't great but it shows how fun their skit was.



Brendan is a talented musician and plays three instruments including piano, bassoon and tenor saxophone.



Alyssa and Natalie as accomplished gymnasts and performed a cute choreographed dance.  If only we had some uneven bars for Alyssa to show off her giants!



My brother is one of the funniest people I know.  He has made me laugh with his conducting of Braham's Hungarian dance for years.  It was a pleasure to see him do it again.



This group performed a skit about an invisible bench.



The older boys did a skit two of them learned at scout camp.  So great.



Maureen did a mash-up of disco songs with Sam. I love watching him dance.  They performed "Stayin' Alive," "I Will Survive" and then led the family into a group participation of "YMCA".



It's fun to stay at the...



Grandma did 20 push-ups.  Impressive.



Jay helped Henry with his talent.  They got some laughs.



Grandpa wanted to teach his children how to waltz and two-step (he kind of hates how we all dance now).  Grandma was his partner.



Then we all tried.  Most of the kids danced with a parent.



Sam got his grandma.



Henry and Sadie two-stepping.



My dad leads everyone in a bunny-hop.



Ansel and Ian show their fancy footwork during Party Rock Anthem.



Which all the kids later joined.  It was festive.



We ended the evening with a family game of basketball lightning (Caleb was the champion.  I came in second and Sarah came in third.  I thought I might die for lack of oxygen at the end) as well as a family dance.  It is a great tradition to have the talent show and dance and I was so impressed by the creativity and participation of the kids.  They are getting older, braver and more independent and the evening was a highlight for me.