Gardner Reunion

Oh the dirt! We always forget how incredibly dirty camping is--then we come back and look at pictures. DJ--this first picture was taken especially for you! We just spent 4 days at the actual Gardner family reunion. We went to the same place that some of us went to over the 4th of July, the Hams Fork Campground north of Kemmerer, WY.


Last time we were there the kids made paint out of mud. This time Aunt Danette brought real paint for the kids. It was a huge hit! Glade and Connie's David is the warrior in the back and their little girl Yvonne is in the blue. Danette and Curtis' Eli is shooting us, or something. And then there are our 3 girls--clean for now!



And the big boys played horseshoes and mountain man golf!




Kaylee, Emily and I went on a hike with some of the other cousins. We have done this hike before up to the seminary/EFY object lesson tree. I am very curious to know what direction Matt's brother Ryan will go with this object lesson. Here is one talk that I thought of. We are guessing that at some point another tree fell on this one. Instead of dying off or even growing at some funky angle it went around the obstacle and kept going on the path it was intended to go. The quote —“to act for themselves and not to be acted upon” comes to mind. I would love to have YOUR COMMENTS. What quotes or lessons do you learn from this little tree that could?
The kids had fun taking pictures in the trees (actually Emily didn't, and I couldn't bring myself to posting the picture of her holding on for dear life with tears in her eyes). Danette and Curtis' not a baby anymore Skylar is next to her big brother Eli. Kaylee is below that with her walking stick.




Here are 3 of Chad and Carolyn's kids: Jeremy, Caleb and Jessica. And then the picture of the hiking crew. It was sure hard to say bye to the Houston Gardner's. We miss you already!



“And my father dwelt in a tent.” (1 Ne. 2:15.) The perfect theme for a Gardner campout and tshirt. The kids had fun signing their names. With 23 grandkids and 23 shirts, Emily really got good at writing her name!

"What is the score?!" Traci you are so great! This was such a fun scavenger hunt! I had fun watching all of the kids. They loved it!

Sailing!! Some day we might upgrade to a bigger boat, but this works for now. It was a pretty windy day on Viva Naughton.

I'm trying to get the sailing video posted but it isn't working, so it may be up later.

38 years!! This was a fun night! It was fun to see Matt and his family all together. The family band played while Dave sang a love song to Dixie for their anniversary and then all of the little kids did songs, dances, skits, poems etc. I wish I had more video from this night.



Coy and Kaylee's "Let your light so shine" devotional!

I wish this picture from the cup game had turned out better. I wish I could figure out how to take pictures in the dark. I took a bunch this night, but they didn't turn out well at all. Aunt Danette did a great job with this reunion and especially with this night. It was very special!

So, that's it! Our last vacation and school starts on Monday! We are tired. In fact poor Kierra is just now waking up from a good 5 hour nap! Hopefully her two front teeth came in while she was sleeping. We had a great summer though! It was busy that's for sure! Now off to clean my house and get ready for a routine!

There are no kids meals at taco places!

As we were driving up to Kemmerer for the Gardner 4th of July camping trip all I could think about was how to blog this and how to blog that. Can you tell that I am getting hooked? We were trying to figure out if we should get dinner in Evanston or keep going on to Kemmerer. Of course the girls wanted kids meals but we knew they weren't going to be very hungry because we had been snacking a little bit on the way. So Matt says, let's go on and eat at Taco Time (because that is pretty much the only place we know of in Kemmerer). He said, "There are no kids meals at taco places!" The girls totally believed it, however we still went to Wendy's in Evanston and managed to get away without the kids' meals and toys and the best part was I had the opening story for my 4th of July camping trip blog!! Yes, pathetic I know. Anyway, the pictures will pretty much speak for themselves.

I feel like I have so many pictures and I know that Matt's sister Danette has some even better ones that she and her kids took. I'll have to get some of those from her and post them later. I didn't have my camera on our hike and there were some cool pictures there. Anyway, enjoy! I'll have to do some explaining along the way. Like this clown rock picture. The kids made paint (out of mud) and spent hours painting all of the rocks and sticks in camp. I wish I had a picture of them actually doing this. Taylor especially was very meticulous about her painting. And of course they got dirty.

Matt is driving Grandpa's truck to take these crazy kids on one of their wood or water runs.

We saw these moose on our way up to camp.

We are pretty sure one of these slept in some

willows just below our tent on the last night.

It's always good to make new friends!

Kierra Ann! She was so great! She had a hard time falling asleep the first night which really made me second guess what the heck we were doing there with a baby, but after that first night we had a blast! These pictures remind me of ones we have of Kaylee camping when she was that age. Eli, who was 2 (almost 3) at the time (now in the yellow shirt) would say, "Her needs her cousin" and crawl in the play pen with her. He and all of the cousins take such good care of my girls. Eli and Kaylee still have a cute, silly bond (as you can see in a video further down).

Emily Lynne! She is definitely the emotional one right now. (I know...they are all girls and always emotional--including their mother). She stayed by my side a lot, but had a lot of fun!

Taylor Marie!

CLEAN! DIRTY!

Taylor with Grandma Gardner.

Kaylee Elaine!
Smores!

And the dancing! I wish I had a better video of these kids break dancing. I forget that it is easy to tape and upload videos from our little camera.

So that is it for now. That was a huge blog I know. I wish I knew how to do this better and faster, but I guess I'll learn as I go. The layout, font, colors, etc. don't really matter I suppose--All you really need to get from these pictures is that we had a ton of fun! Happy 4th of July!!