I think there was 340 or so in attendance.
One of my favorite things were the names tags someone made that not only had our names, but our number of when we joined the family. Either by birth or marriage.
Dana's dad (#4): One of the original's.
Sadie (#333): A little further down the line.
My niece Keena (#190) and I (#189). She was born a few weeks after we got married.
We stayed in "The Stables" which were actually converted horse stables. They were awesome. The kids loved the sliding doors with bars on them.
There were so many "favorite" activities there, but for sure one of the very top, was canoeing in the lake.
Catching these bugs (this is one variety of grasshopper there) which were all over the grass was another.
Eli said these guys were in a state of "hypnosis" after he rubbed their bellies....then he admitted there was a chance they were dead too.
My favorite activity at the ranch was the dance. It was awesome. They started with some acts- like this one with the all the first generation siblings coming out to perform:) That's Dana's dad out front. Of course the crowd went wild for these beloved people.
Then they called out members of each family to do a little 30 second "dance" with wigs to disguise you so you feel more brave and anonymous. Dana, Dakota, Dean. They did an awesome job representing us!
Between acts they opened up the floor to free dancing. Eli showed off some pretty sweet moves :)
Emma got to practice dancing with a boy with her cousin Lars before she's old enough for stake dances:)
And by the end lots of people just got out there and danced. What a great memory:)
Everyone took part in planning or being charge of something. Dana and I were asked to be over the "Teenager's Activities" Thurs and Fri night. It ended up being a lot of fun and all the kids were great and willing to participate. We did EFY-type games the first night and on the second night we waited until dark and gave the girls orange and pink glow sticks and the boys blue and green glowsticks and started them off on a game of "freeze tag" girl vs. boy. Pretty soon they started a game of "capture the flag" and playing on their own.
The main point of it was that most of these extended cousins really don't know each other since they naturally hang out with their own first cousins. So hopefully they got more familiar with each other.
It was extra fun too since Emma is now in the "teen" category.
Here are more of my favorite pics (many I did not take myself):
Sadie and one of her more distant cousins (one of Dana's cousin's granddaughter) Lucy had fun playing together.
The next day one of Sadie favorite people in the whole world, her cousin Sophie, got there and those two were giddy beyond words (literally- all anyone heard was a whole lot of squealing) but they only played for half a day and then Sophie got the stomach flu and she and Kristy (her mom) were stranded in their hotel room the rest of the trip. It was a sad thing. Sadie sobbed :(
It was like kid heaven with all fields of grass to run and play in.
A big game of tug-O-war:) I think the girls lost this one.
Sunday, the day we left, we had a family devotional.
Bruce gave a very touching devotional which left us feeling emotional and grateful. He told a story I'd never heard before. Dana's grandpa (one of the two who started this family:) was born in Norway. He had a hard childhood. He was the only child of a second marriage. He had a kind, nurturing mother but a hard, unfeeling father who more than once pulled him out of bed at night to beat him for reasons unknown to him. The story he told was that one night at dinner something set off his father. He walked around the table smashing everyone's plates with a hammer. Scary as it sounds, it actually became a happy memory later for Cornelius because at that moment he realized he never wanted to be a father like that. He started thinking about what kind of man he did want to be.
Bruce had the hammer there- engraved with a "K".
Bruce went on to talk about the kind of man he did end up becoming. Someone so good and gentle that when one time he got so frustrated in traffic that suddenly a string of curse words came flying out of his mouth, he pulled over and repented right on the spot and later related the story to Bruce with tears in his eyes. I think he was so afraid that if he slipped an inch he'd turn into the man he was terrified of as a child.
It was so neat for the kids to learn about their heritage. The whole trip was just very special and full of great memories.
Finally, we packed up and drove home and talked about the trip under some seriously beautiful skies.
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