More and more family!

After the outing on the first day we came back to the cabin. Again, not a bad place to be!

There was a lot of fun to have.

Like bubbles...

From 2011-07-11

hot tubbing...

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water hopscotch...

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and hanging out.

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Each night we played a big family game together. These pictures are from our "Minute to Win It" competition. We found out that some of our family members have some unlikely talents.

In this competition there are five needles stuck in the box. You have to thread the needles only using one hand. Gabriela was a pro.

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This picture is the show down of who can empty a box of kleenex's the fastest. Abigail was able to pull hers out in a train and emptied her box well before her older sister.

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Here Mckayla needs to blow the cards off of the deck leaving only the bottom card on the glass. She got it!

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Gordon and Ethan are shaking their booties to try and empty their boxes of ping-pong balls. This was so entertaining to watch I don't even remember who won.

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This was a puzzle show-down. Amber blew Steve out of the water with this one.

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Next was a super silly challenge that we all got to try. We put Oreos on our forehead and tried to get them into our mouths without using our hands. We did it in three different shifts so everyone got a change to watch the silliness as well. Boy did it make us laugh!

From Collages

It was so great to have fun with our extended family. These are some wonderful people who are just fun to hang out with.

Don't you wish you could be a Maple?

We just got home from a really fun family reunion. I was so glad to go and sad to leave. I think if it weren't for the lack of sleep I would have wanted to stay twice as long!

We stayed in a beautiful cabin in Heber, UT.

From 2011-07-13

It was perfect. There was a big living room for gathering, a giant kitchen we all wish we had in our own homes. The backyard had a grassy area for playing lawn games and a hot tub that was used every day by the kids and every night by the adults. In the basement was a theater room and a fabulous game room. It was equipped with a pool table, ping pong table, fooseball table and a weight bench.

From 2011-07-10

In another room in the basement was a family room type room. There was a table in there that was set up with craft supplies. The kids were allowed to make whatever they wanted. This was genius, the girls would disappear into their creative world for hours. I saw crowns made out of pipe cleaners, microphones made with styrofoam balls, and so much more.

We like to take a big family picture when we get together. This usually causes me a bit of stress since the last two reunions I've been named photographer. I think this one actually turned out pretty good. Our instructions were to choose a solid color for our whole family to wear so individual families could be picked out from the group. It just turned out that everyone chose cool colors for their families.

From 2011-07-11

Not that we needed to leave the cabin for entertainment, but we did go on a few outings as a group. Our first one was to Cascade Springs. It is a pretty area with boardwalk paths built over natural springs. My family has been several times over the years. It was fun to share it with our spouses and children who had never been before.

My sister, Barbara has a picture of herself at Cascade Springs when she was a toddler. She was leaning over the side to touch the water with her hand in the picture. Since Barbara's son, Davey, is the same age as she was in the picture, Barbara asked me to try and get one with Davey in the same pose. Davey would have nothing to do with it. He did not want to touch the water and was upset at being a model. But he's always cute, no matter his mood.

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Davey's slightly older cousins weren't afraid at all to look over the edge and kept on trying to see what we were pointing out to Davey.

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Here is a picture of the area.

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My cousin Maria and her baby.

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Me with Gordon and Grant (aren't you proud of me for handing off the camera for a picture!)

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Amber with some wildlife she found to love.

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My mom and her sister, the original family our reunion stems from

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There is, of course more, but I think that is enough for one post. More to come!