Reunion Time! Tons of FUN! Tons of pictures!

We were completely packed. Top to bottom...meaning car-topper was full and the girls had sleeping bags at their feet. We were packed! The 3 older girls played in the back and the younger 2 slept up front before arriving at Beaver Mountain Lodge for not 1 but 2 Gardner reunions!!

The first reunion was Matt's immediate family. His parents and all of his siblings but 1 were there. The week started out with horses and horseshoes. Grandpa brought his horse plus 2 others that the kids took turns riding all day Monday and Tuesday.





Lots of crafts to be done, lots of blue tie dye, lots of food to eat and lots of dirt to play in!








Oh and I tried to teach Taylor and my nieces and nephew the classic girls' camp smile!



Wednesday was a day at Bear Lake with wave-runners!!

The day started out pretty cloudy, windy and almost rainy, but we waited for it to blow past and had a beautiful day in the water! The kids LOVED the wave-runners! I barely saw Kaylee, she and her cousins got dumped but were on and goin' again right away! Taylor, our usual daredevil, was scared at first, but then loved it! Even Kierra and Emily were screaming
FASTER...GO FASTER!!






And Grandma and Grandpa even got on!! I wish I had gotten a picture of them as they walked out holding hands. They are too cute!



Sometimes a little too cute! They sure didn't mind having to hold the pose for the picture below. Here we celebrated Grandma and Grandpa's 40th anniversary. We gave them a little scrapbook that had a layout for each kid and grandkid. Then there was a video of their crazy posterity! It was awesome! We hope they had a wonderful anniversary! We sure love Grandma and Grandpa Gardner and appreciate all that they do for us! They work so hard in everything they do. They are so in love and love to let us know that! :)
They have an amazing family!




There was lots of fun tent time!





Kierra and Thomas even got some good naps in! :)



Thursday was the beginning of the big Gardner reunion...Matt's Dad's family!
If you can't tell from the pictures Matt's family was assigned the color blue! We were the biggest family there and had fun wearing our shirts and bandannas that we tie dyed a couple of days before. I'll get the officially family pictures this weekend. I can't wait to see how they turned out! I'll post them soon!

This reunion we spent most of the time in the lodge playing games, lots of bananagrams, and hanging out! There were a lot of great activities for the little kids. It was just so relaxing to hang out with the guitars, violin and harmonica in the background. Here's a video of all of us just relaxing! My nephew Cole is one amazing violinist/fiddler...what's the difference between a violin and a fiddle again? :) Nevermind...don't answer that. But really, Cole is incredible and I am sad I didn't get a better video of him, but you can see him a little bit here.







I took a ton of pictures of Kierra this week. I think it must've been because the older 3 were always off with cousins. They all had a blast! Here is Kierra trying to do the cup game! A must see video! :)



Thomas did so good! We were always able to find a little corner for him in all of the noise and chaos where he would just crash for a couple of hours. Then he was right back at it, playing games with all of the older kids!




Did I mention how great the older cousins were with my kids?!
(ha ha...I did mention it, but then I moved it to the bottom of the post instead of the top)




And we ALL love Aunt Traci!



This is by far one of my favorite pictures ever!
Check out those happy happy smiles!
LOVE IT!



Our family slept in the tent a little ways away from the lodge, but Kaylee wanted to stay in the lodge with her 2nd cousins that she only gets to see every 3 years. :( It was amazing how fast she and McKenzie became the best of friends again! I was a little nervous about leaving Kaylee in the lodge without any adults that she really knew. She said, "It's ok Mom, Brett is here if I need anything." Glad to know that she had some "adults" to look out for her! I guess he's married with a kid now so that makes him an adult! :) She had a blast! All of my kids did! There were times when I didn't see any of my 5 kids for a while and when I found them their older cousins were playing with them and taking such good care of them! My kids LOVE their cousins and miss them so much already!
We had such a great week! We have the best family ever!



Friday night! Talent show night!







The last night we had a mini talent show. We really didn't have anything planned but some of the cousins knew right away what they wanted to do!



And then check out this Jordan girl with her dad!! I was gonna put this Colby Caillat song on my playlist, but I like this version sooooo much better! (sorry, I forget you'll have to pause the playlist to see all the videos)



And last but not least a little bit of Grandpa singing, his brothers on drums and guitar, son Ryan on guitar, other son Chad on the harmonica, and Grandma knitting of course! (it's that or bananagrams with her grandkids!)
I love how Grandpa says "Cool" at the end!
It all WAS "cool"!
Such a great week!
Thanks everyone and love you all!!