Gee Family Reunion 2013

Friday, July 26th and Saturday, July 27th:  Bring on the every-other-year Clendon and Erma Gee Family Reunion!!!  (Clendon and Erma were Dave's grandparents so this is a reunion of all Dave's uncles, aunts, and cousins.)  We LOVE this reunion and look forward to it very much!

David took Friday off work, so as soon as he was home on Thursday night, we packed up the van and headed north for Idaho.  This was the part I dreaded most.  I was very sick in the evenings and I got car sick quite easily.  However, I had Dave stop at our nearby Chinese restaurant on the way out of town so I could pick up a cup of Hot and Sour soup and it worked like magic on me!  I didn't feel sick until the last 45 minutes or so.  We arrived at Grandma and Grandpa Gee's house after 10:00 that night.  We all said said hi, ate a piece of bread and went straight to sleep.

The next morning, we woke up bright and early.  We ate breakfast, got cleaned up, and headed to the Sugar Salem High School track.  There, we met David's other siblings who were in town (missing Kristi's family, Nathan's family, Caden, and Evan) about an hour before the reunion began.  I taught the group my little "synchronized swimming" routine that I choreographed back in high school (boy - that little gem has come in handy many times throughout the years!)  I think the Gees are talented "swimmers!"  They learned it very fast - even the little kids were great!  Grandma and Grandpa Gee worked in the visitors center during the day shift, so they stopped by to watch us practice for a little while since they'd miss the actual performance.

Soon, other members of the extended family started showing up to set up the reunion.  I helped a little where I could, but also had fun visiting with family and trying (and failing) to keep Josh out of the sprinklers.  David's cousin, Lanette was in charge this year.  She put in a TON of work and did an AMAZING job!  The theme was "The Gee Family Olympics."  We started with an opening ceremony.

Registering for the event.

Dave's cousins Jared and Marc singing the national anthem.

Guy and Heather Clark's family sang a special "Idaho Potatoes" song.

Some pictures of our Synchronized Swimming routine performed at the opening ceremony.

Our big lift!

Final pose.

If you'd like to see the video of our dance, go to:   http://youtu.be/OI4d1-M6Bx8  It's pretty funny.  The BEST part to me is little Joshua in the front.  He was too young and shy to learn the dance, but I told the little kids that they could sit on towels in the front and swim.  Boy, did he!

Lanette divided us into teams (just figuring out the best way to separate people into teams must have taken hours!  She kept little kids with their parents, but tried to mix all the different family groups up, etc)  I was seriously impressed!  Each team went around to different stations to compete in different events.  Bronson and Nicole were both on my team.  David and Josh were on a team together.  Alison was in her our group, but she made friends quickly.  I took a ton of pictures.  Here are just a few:

Suzette was in charge of one of the toughest games.

You had to bounce balls into cups, each with different point values.  

Alison is knocking bottles of water over with a tennis ball in panty hose.

Long jump. 

Long jump.

Dave's team is getting instructions from Aunt Ann for the discus throw.

Gracie and Nicole "noodle fencing."

Go Josh!

Alison getting ready for the shower cap Cheeto toss (I think the name was more clever, but I can't remember it!)

You had to see how many Cheeots you could get to stick.

Dave and Isabelle were on a team.  

Josh picked Cheetos off the ground and if they weren't too shaving creamy, he'd eat them.  I say you can't really get much worse than a Cheeto puff anyways, so why not?

Alison and Dave were in a "pie eating" contest.

You had to dig through the whipped cream and find the piece of gum.  Whoever blew the first bubble won.

I competed in the "rhythmic gymnastics" event.  Each person had to unroll a streamer as fast as possible.  I SMOKED 'EM ALL!!  And I did it with flair!

We finished our competition around lunch time.  We ate huge sub sandwiches, chips, fruit, and cookies.  YUM!  It tasted so good!  I drank about fifty gallons of water too.  What a fun morning.

 Wow!  That's a lot of information and pictures!  I've gotta take a break.  I guess I write about the rest of the reunion later.