Gema's Delights: July 2010

Each summer our family gets together for a family reunion. We have bopped all over the state and even into Oklahoma over the past 10 summers until we finally found the perfect place. We found Ft. Parker State Park that has a whole barracks--9 buildings you can rent for $300 a night. So that is where our 10 families head for three nights in the middle of summer--good ole' hot, humid east Texas. BUT.....this facility comes with 4 cabins and a huge dining hall/commercial size kitchen that is AIR-CONDITIONED. So it never matters to us what the weather may bring. We have our own fishing pier and baseball field, two bathhouses, and a game room, too. And it is secluded away from rest of park so it is only us so we can hoop and holler all we want without disturbing others. A great place for family fun.
Most of our time is spent playing games---dominoes, Banana-grams, Sequence, Spades, Twenty-five Words, Small World, and many others. The toddlers can run around and play with their cars, run up and down the Corn Hole boards, and spend hours out on the big back porch blowing bubbles. Much fishing goes on, too, and the kids run all around the place. And we eat a lot. Each family (10 families) brings two snacks to share and we divide the meals into teams of two families so each family only has to cook one meal and we have really yummy meals. Lunch we just snack through or bring sandwich stuff or eat leftovers. There is a huge icemaker so we never run out of ice. It is not a luxurious place but it is very comfortable and user friendly.
There are four big cabins with 20 bunks in each plus a staff cabin (which us old folks get priority of as it has its own bathrooms). It is just a perfect place for us. And it is pretty equal driving distance for everyone but those San Angelo folks.
This year we added a really fun adventure to our reunion that I hope we do every year. Tammie worked very hard and came up with 19 challenges for us to have our very own AMAZING RACE. She divided us into 5 teams--the youngest kids were selected as team captains and they chose their teams so we had good mixtures of kids and various family members. Here are the challenges we did:

1. Throw a tortilla into a hula hoop from a distance. Each team member had to get theirs in the hoop before we could go on.
2. Each team member had to hit a baseball and catch a baseball being hit.
3. One team member had to smash eggs on his forehead until he found one that was NOT hard boiled.
4. Each team had to put together a jig saw puzzle and then dig through a bucket of puzzle pieces to find our one missing piece.
5. One team member had to throw a marshmallow off the top step of porch into each team member's mouth.
6. Each team had to make a paper airplane from newspaper and sail it across the road.
7. A piggyback relay where each team member had to carry youngest member from bucket of water where he filled up sponge to cup where he squeezed water out til cup was filled.
8. Went inside to AC in dining hall where twine was strung between two chairs and we had to balance nails by their heads on taught string till we had 5 hung and they hung for 15 seconds.
9. Park sign scramble We had to find a park sign and use the words on sign to find letters to make 5 new words and write them down. Could not use words within a word.
10. Had to drag next to youngest team member in a sheet in a figure 8 pattern around two cabins.
11. There is a big, VERY OLD cemetary across from the cabins in this park and each team was given a name on a grave and a piece of paper and crayon and we had to go find that grave and make a rubbing.
12. Find the coin in a cup by blowing the flour off of it till you could clearly see it--each team member had to do this.
13. Toss water from a cup three feet into a small bucket.
14. Go on a search in a certain wooded area for a tiny brown dog (or whatever animal was on your list)
15. Build a 4 story card house.
16. Get 15 cheetos thrown one at a time to stick on team member's head that had been filled with shaving cream.
17. There was a maze of string tied along railing on each side of boad dock and you had to unravel your string color and bring it back.
18. In game room had to bounce a ping pong ball on a bench so that it would land in bucket. Each team member had to do it.
19. Hang your youngest team member by duct tape onto the backstop of baseball field. He had to hang for 15 seconds with no help.
20. Rush back to site of our weinie roast the night before (which was the huge gas stove in kitchen since we had a huge thunderstorm which did not bode well for our campfire)
*****PHOTOS FOLLOW IN NEXT POST++++
It was so much fun----and so exhausting. Tammie was the hero of the WEEK for coming up with all these ideas and doing all the work to put it together. It was the best memory maker ever.

This reunion was a huge success and went by way too fast. It is just so good to have several days to just relax, talk, laugh, play, and be together. We are all so blessed to be part of this great big crazy patchwork quilt of a family. Thank you, Lord, for blessing us so and putting us all together.

And I must say that we very much missed Adam, Brian, Tammy, Ariel, Jon, Gina, Troy, and Jerry who were unable to come this year and Kara who had to leave early.

These are the 5 team leaders: Zane, Brock, Mason, Morgan, Blaine

Grant, Hayden, and Abigail--the youngest family members (who thought we all lost our minds)

That is Tammie on the right end who planned this incredible race. THANK YOU.

Team Blue: Jenny, Mason, Kenzie, Don and Julie

Team Purple: Mace, Jennifer, Zane, and Grace

Team Red: Elizabeth, Josh, David, Christy, and Brock

Team Yellow: Amber, Beki, Rebecca, Morgan, and Bailey

Team Green: Jesse, Amy, Tania, Micah, and Blaine

This challenge was to put together a jigsaw puzzle and then go through a bucket of pieces to find your missing piece.

This challenge was that each team member had to piggyback relay the youngest team member who had to dip a sponge in a bucket and then squeeze it in a cup to fill that cup with water.

This task was to carry/drag the next to youngest team member in a sheet in a figure 8 pattern around two of the cabins.

That is Kenzie they are dragging. This was an exhausting challenge!

Team members had to toss water into bucket from a distance to fill it.

Each team had to build a 4 story card house. Our team finished first because we bent the cards (rules did not say you couldn't....) see next photo of our house

This was a fun challenge. One team member had their head squirted with shaving cream and the rest of team had to throw cheetos one at a time until we had 15 that stuck on her head.