Vacation Day 4

 Tuesday morning a bunch of the guys, Mike included, woke up bright and early after a late night of playing games and drove to Rexburg to go golfing.  I don't think Mike has golfed since the last family reunion, but he had a good time.  

While they were gone, we played a game called, "how many kids can you fit into one hot tub."  At one point, we had twelve.

After the guys got back we left the kids and went out for a girls lunch.  We drove to West Yellowstone, ate a yummy lunch, and then walked through some of the shops.  It's a cute little town with restaurants that open at 10 and close at "7ish" (the college boy who was working in town for the summer told us that he's seen 7ish mean 5 o'clock).  

    We had a great time chatting and browsing through touristy souvenirs and nick knacks.  My mom wanted to buy everything from chocolates called buffalo chips to gummies from the candy shop for Mat (we also had to find a post office so she could drop off one of his three to four times a week letter).  She definitely has her missionary on the mind.  And I may have possibly been wooed by yet another small town ice creamery with (what else) home made waffle cones, but this time they also had frozen yogurt with fruit mix ins.  It was delicious.  

With cousin-in-laws Jenni and Miriam

Aunt Diana, Hayley, Paige, and Miriam.  I wish I would have gotten a shot of all of us!

    After we got back, we took the kids on a drive down the river to a place where you can feed huge fish.  Unfortunately, we didn't see any fish to feed, but the mosquitoes had a feast courtesy of us.  There were some ducks that the kids were able to throw bread at and they enjoyed that, but we didn't stay long since we were being eaten alive.  

       To me, these next two pictures capture why driving twelve hours was worth it.  One day in the midst of all the craziness that thirty people in the same house brings, I happened to witness the sweet moment.  My little boy playing checkers with my grandfather. 

Her is Kiwi and my cousin Hayley.  Hayley and her family live in Texas so we don't get to see them often enough and look forward to family reunions when we can spend time together.

      That night, we played some "Minute to Win It" games prepared by Doug and Dawn and ran by Kyle and Jenni.  I've never really watched that show, but I doubt they've got anything on our family when it comes to excitement levels.  Sure, they may be playing for money, but we are playing with D family competitiveness and cheering, which made for one loud, fun filled night of kleenex pulling, ping pong bouncing, dice stacking, oreo eating fun.  

      We were divided into teams and then the little kids had some activities just for them also.  

Aunt Diana just before she won her family the hotly debated bubble blowing contest.  I think we needed to appoint some line judges for this one.

         The point of the Oreo game was if you could get it into your mouth from your forehead without using any hands.  While I was trying to explain this to Kiwi I said something to the effect that after playing for a minute she could eat the cookie.  She apparently took that to mean that if she could balance the cookie on her forehead for a minute without it falling off she got to eat it.  She sat exactly like this for the entire time.  All the kids around her were wiggling around, dropping their cookies and starting over as they tried to move them down their faces and she was like a statue.  She didn't even turn a fraction of an inch to see what was going on around her.  It was pretty cute to watch.  

Little Man trying to move the cookie down his face.  Note Kiwi in to his side.