Summer Vacation: Part 2

Packard Family Reunion 2009

We continued our drive up into Utah where Camelot Resort, Fruitland, Utah was our destination for the 2009 Packard Family Reunion. (My mom's side of the family.) These reunions are always a party because my mom has 13 siblings so there is no shortage of friends to play with and things to do.

Some of the highlights this year: Games, crafts, archery, river floats, more games, good food, foot races, pinata, snow cones, foot races, stargazing with Arthur's telescope, family dance, variety show, and a video presentation of Grandma & Grandpa before Grandma passed away last year.

We had a blast. The only downsides were the mosquitos, the bathroom situation (not enough showers for the campers) and not enough free time to play card games. I guess we just needed one more day to squeeze in all the fun!

Games for the 3-10 year olds on the first day.

Notice all the beautiful color-coded family t-shirts, (designed by Kimball and Marianne--good job, guys.)

All 14 children have a different color assigned to their family, so when you see some little kid running around in lime green Packard t-shirt, you know they belong to Owen & Aimee's family.

Our family was navy blue this year.

Pin the star on the "sheriff" (Grandpa)

Some of the aunt and uncles did bottle rockets with the kids. Sean LOVED the bottle rockets! He hung out on the field watching everybody launching theirs.

Water guns

Foot races

I think Sean ran in almost age division. He's lucky he didn't trampled by those teenage boys. They were fast and ruthless!

All the aunts lining up for their footrace.

Hayden sitting on Grandpa's lap watching the races.

Archery

River Floats

This little river that meandered through the camp was deceptively fast. Dallin & I tipped over and had a hard time retrieving my flip flops and getting ourselves set to float down the rest of the river. When we got to the end of the ride, we were both sporting some scrapes and Dallin said, "Wow, Mom, I thought we were done for!"

Here is another part of the river that was dammed up so the little kids had a fun time cooling off in that part of it. It was so hot, sometimes I'd just go stand in the river to cool down myself.

Arthur and Hayden

Sean & Hayden.

This little swing set was fun for the kids riding it, but unfortunately, it took down quite a few little ones too.

Mom doing her crafts with the 3-10 year olds

No Packard reunion is complete without a pinata. There were three this year. One for the little ones, one for the in-betweeners, and one for the teenagers.

Here are the uncles doctoring up the teens' pinata so it would last long enough for them all to have a turn. That's red duct tape that they are wrapping around the thing. Needless to say, everyone got a chance and the last guy just took it down and started beating it on the ground to open it. Very entertaining. (In fact, I suspect the real reason the Packard's do pinatas at these reunions is so all the adults can get a good laugh.)

Thanks to everyone who worked hard to make this reunion a success.

I feel so lucky to have such a big, fun, awesome family!

Packard Family Reunion

We spent the last week of June up in Washington State for the 2007 Packard Family Reunion--(Sharee's mother's family.) We had quite an adventure actually getting there. Our car was misbehaving the whole way until finally in the middle of Utah, the engine died. The kids were great about it and we had a "fun adventure" getting towed through the Spanish Fork Canyon. Aunt Melody and Uncle Carl were awesome to take us in as they were preparing to leave for the reunion also. We borrowed Grandma and Grandpa Packard's car (thank you!) to drive the rest of the way to the reunion. I wish I could say that we arrived there without further incident, but a deer jumped out of nowhere in Montana and hit that little black car! (Yes, we were wondering if anything else could possibly go wrong.) But that car got us the rest of the way, and we had a great time. We also had a fun time visiting Jenny & Brandon, and Julianne and Melanie up in Rexburg on the way up. Here are a few of the pictures from all the festivities.

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