Family Reunion

The last week of February, we drove back to I.F. for the Ward Family reunion. A family reunion in February, you ask??? Because vacation times are based on seniority with Doug's work, we're so lucky to get whatever's left, which ultimately leaves October, November, February, March, and April left for picking our vacation days. So we make the best of it and Doug's sister (who was in charge of the reunion this year) was so kind to accommadate us (and another brother), which we were very greatful. As always, it was wonderful to visit with family, we had a great time and the kids had so much fun with their cousins.


Off to Grandma and Grandpa's...





Where's Aiden?




There he is!




They loved playing in the snow. Below is Shannon, Olivia and their cousin Riley. It was funny watching Liv trying to walk in it.



Even at Grandma's Aiden and Olivia managed to get into mischief. They got into a box of oranges that were left out and stashed their mess behind the curtains.





We were able to go through a session at the new Rexburg temple. Ken (our brother-in-law) was the foreman for the outside crew that worked on the temple and he was able to give every one of the sibling's, and mom & dad, a piece of the granite used in the temple.





The grandkids (minus three) all having a slumber party at aunt Julie's.





Once the kids are down, it's party time for the parents. The first night we stayed up until almost 4am. There were some pretty tired adults the next day but that didn't stop us from staying up the following night. Now I have to tell a funny story. The first night we stayed up, us ladies made a KJ's run. Meaning, we went down to the local gas station and filled up the 44 oz. cups with fountain drinks since it was only 50 cents or so to fill them. There are five of us women with a box (really, we brought a box with us to hold all the drinks in) filled with nine fountain drinks and a few Sobe's and Vitamin waters, plus some goodies. The following night it was the men's turn. When they took the stuff up to the counter, one of my brother-in-laws said something like, "I bet you don't see something like this very often." The woman behind the counter said, "Actually, there was a group that came in last night." His reply, "Yeah, that was us too."



Saturday was game day with everyone. We were going to go sledding after breakfast but it was raining and all week the snow has slowly been melting so it wasn't good weather to play in. Julie had reserved the cultural hall at the church and had games planned for the kids. Below: the kids having a leap frog relay.




One of the other games was to build a snowman using whatever supplies they had available. Everything was piled in the middle of the gym; boxes, sticks, clothing, buttons, balloons, etc. We had two minutes to plan what items we wanted, after the two minutes, one person from each family ran into the center and grabbed whatever they could and brought it back to their team. We then had 10 minutes to build our snowman. Ours is the one on the left. We used chewing gum to hold the eyes and nose on. We won the "most life-like" award. The one on the right belongs to Julie and Ken (Doug's sister). They won the "most anatomically correct" award.