Wednesday, August 17, 2011

reunion

Last weekend was our extended Johnson family reunion with my dad's side of the family.

It was my dad's turn to be in charge which meant that I got to help be in charge.

My mom had the brilliant idea of doing a carnival.

We have more kids in the family now than adults because all of the cousins are having babies, and a carnival was the perfect way to keep kids entertained!

It was a lot of work but a lot of fun.

We drove down a few days early to help get things ready.

The reunion was Saturday, and besides being a little windy it turned out to be a great day.

It's so fun to see families explode.....


My grandparents had 6 kids- 5 boys and 1 girl
They have 29 grandchildren
and at least 52 great grandchildren so far!


We all miss grandpa, but it's because of grandma that we get together every 2 years for these reunions.

I hope we keep them up even after she's gone.


Some of the highlights of the carnival:


*The "car wash" that I made Dave build
It was a super hot day and even the adults enjoyed running through and getting smacked in the face with a wet sponge.


*My sister-in-law Ayrial's face painting - so beautiful!!



Elli wanted Hello Kitty
Mariah and Amora (my brother Brandon's oldest daughter) just wanted pretties on their faces

*Snow cones on a hot day are so refreshing!




*Our ticket booth (made from a refrigerator box)
All the kids loved getting their tickets and cotton candy and Tanner loved being the ticket man! After all that work we were not throwing that thing away so we stuffed it in on top of all of our heads for the 2 1/2 hour ride back home. So worth it and I can use it for our school carnival next month!


*Yummy food
Barbecued beef sandwiches and all kinds of other yummy things!
My sister Carissa & Brandon's 2nd daughter Lexie


I have such pretty sisters!


My youngest sister Genelle and my brother Brandon


Our family table. Please excuse the pained look on my face - I am 8 months pregnant and REALLY shouldn't be in pictures at this point!


*Mom's fish pond


She found the best prizes, including several McDonalds Happy Meal toys. Always a hit!



*Grandma's money/sawdust pool
The kids come by age and get a few minutes to search for all the coins they can find. My cousins and I were remembering doing this every year when we were young.


My sweet grandma overlooked the whole thing and loved watching the kids find money! Elli didn't quite get it at first. Tanner finally went in to help her and she had a lot of fine searching for money!


Mariah and Amora's group


Adriana and Tanner's age group - these kids went crazy and ended up with tons of money! (Adri had at least $10)



The oldest kids - my sister and 2 oldest girls were the only ones! They each ended up with about $12!!



Dave and the kids made 50 bags of cotton candy before we even went to Utah - our suburban was so squished with stuff for the carnival we almost didn't have room for the kids!!


Uncle Bruce's Toss the "corn" game


Aunt Bev and Em's Penny Throw game



Aunt Vicki brought Bingo for the adults to play



Akayla & Corina were in charge of the Fish Pond


My sisters helped with our "Shoot the Duck" game



good things:
spending time with family we don't see often
eternal families
next year our family's not in charge

1 comment:

Holly said...

Wow! That looks like a ton of work, but loads of fun. Thanks for some great ideas. I'm in charge of our Scott reunion next summer.