For those of you who have no idea where Joes Valley is, it is over in Emery county in Utah where lots of people haven't even heard of the towns there. I feel blessed to know about that area and love our trips out there! We have a cabin out in Joes Valley and it is the place where the Olsen family ranch is. We have a family reunion there every other summer over the 4th of July. We get together with my great great grandparents whole family. Their names are Abinadi and Hannah Olsen and they had 12 children. I am a descendant of the 12th child George, who is my grandma's father. So there are a LOT of people that come to this reunion, probably clear down to my 5th or so cousins.
I was so excited to have Casey come this year. We were dating during the last family reunion but we weren't quite serious enough to have him come to this family reunion. This was his first one and I hope he enjoyed himself as much as I did!
The first day we got there we set up camp, played a couple games, and pulled out the frisbee for some ultimate frisbee. We got some cousins from the Foyer's side and put together a bit of a competitive game. I feel bad because the little kids playing with us didn't get the frisbee very often. I had my cousin Keaton pass me the frisbee and as an older kid ran inbetween us to catch the frisbee, I accidentally smacked him in the head with my palm. Whoops! That will teach him to steal from a little kid:) haha. We weren't able to have fires because of the worry about forest fires since there have been so many in Utah but it actually was ok. It didn't get too freezing at night and we didn't feel the need of one. The first night we all just went to sleep instead of staying up and watching the movie on the big screen but don't worry we got to listen to it until it was finally done.
Second day I helped with the 5k in the morning. I am too out of shape to run it so I helped crown the winners as they came in. We have some big competitions at our reunion, this being a fun one. It started to sprinkle during the race and by the end of it people were getting pretty wet. Thanks a lot to all the people praying for rain, it decided to rain heavily on us for the first half of the day! (just kidding I know the rain was great, it just doesn't make for the most fun camping conditions.) We squished with amny of my cousins inside of one trailer and sipped hot chocolate and played some games. After it continued to get packed with kids Casey and I ventured into our two person tent and tried to take a nap as it poured on us. Luckily it finally calmed down to a light sprinkle and we were able to start our kickball tournament. Lots of family's just had one team coming from them but our family ended up having four teams to compete with. I put the rosters together and everyone complained that I stacked my own team but I did the best I could at evenly distributing the adults and kids, my team just happened to get switched around by a family wanting to be more together. We had a devotional givin by Elder Oaks who is a descendant of the 1st child. We always have some square dancing at our reunions and this year my grandpa taught us a dance and then me and my sisters were in charge of teaching three line dances. We did the boot scootin boogie, the cupid shuffle, and having a good time. It was lots of fun to teach but we got pretty tired and my thighs were burning ha. That night we got the cousins together and played a few games of mafia. This is one of our familys favorite games to play together and we have so many loud outspoken people in the family that it got a little loud and crazy. None of the mafias ended up winning, it was still fun and I love my crazy cousins.
The last day we were there we started off with the last kickball games of the tournament. We got to play one game, then chear our other family teams on. Our George family had the biggest group watching and supporting their teams. I just love my family and this is how they have been for me throughout my whole life, a great support system! We had to take a break from the tournament for a family auction, then some races that started with the younger kids and went up to a 16 and older race. I use to be fast but this year I only beat out one person in my age group race even my little sister beat me this year:(. I'm just getting too old and my body was so sore after the kickball games and races! We continued our kickball games after the races and our team "Stacked" ended up winning the tournament, wahoo! After our kickball tournament we went right into the softball tournament. Our teams didn't end up staying what they were supposed to be and we just played for fun. Our team unfortunately lost to another family but at least we won the more organized tournament. I got so tired from all the running around bases so I ended up just watching the last two softball games that my husband and cousins played in. After the games we hurried and packed up our tent because it looked like it was going to start storming again and we didn't want to stay another night in the rain. We wished by the end of the night that we hadn't packed up because it never started raining, just a light sprinkle. We stayed until after the family talent show. Most people sang which we have some great singers in the family, some poeple told stories, played the banjo, and we had two comedy acts that were funny. My aunt was running the thing and my sister Chels and I were supposed to just be a filler act in case the talent show was too short and we definitley were not needed but my aunt called us up anyways. She thought we were going to dance but we couldn't just dance on the spot so we did a "sound of sisters" where we made different animal noises. Ha we weren't very good. After the talent show we had to leave the great reunion because it was getting late. I wish we could have stayed for the dance afterwards but it was too dark and we headed home!
We have the greatest family and such fun reunions.
