The Hanson Family Reunion

Last summer my cousin Heather and I decided that it had been way too long since we had a Lynn Hanson reunion....so we put ourselves in charge of having one this year. Of course last year I couldn't have know all that would be going on in my life this summer. The last eight blogs have been about a 3 week period in July....plus Craig was a full time student at Utah State. I will admit that putting together this reunion was stressful but well worth it. We had a great turn out and I am so happy with how it turned out. I wanted the reunion to be more than just two days of just sitting and visiting. I wanted to come up with a theme and activities that we could mix the families up so that everyone would get to know each other. This is how I remember the Raymond Hanson reunions when I was growing up. Kerry helped me come up with the Family Olympics. With the help of Amy, Mary, Heather and Kim we put together our own olympics. We started out on Friday night with dinner. My good friend Liz helped me get the balloons and decorate the gym for the opening ceremonies.

I loved how it turned out. We lined everyone up around the gym and split into four teams. Each team had a color and was given a arm band to wear with their color on it.
To open the ceremony we had the olympic theme music playing and Amy (with her usual flare) danced around the gym carring the torch with Kim and Heather waving the colors of the teams behind her. We then gathered everyone into teams to decorate a flag. As you can see everyone got involved in coming up with their name and how to decorate their flag.
We assigned Glen and Margaret, Bruce and Joann, Reed and Etta, Ray and Beverly and Lynette to be captains of the team.
There was a little bit of trash talking but it was all in fun. I have to mention that I was surprised that my father was one of the main instigators of the trash talking and because of this added entertainment his team recieved the most entertaining award. After all of the flags were done each team presented their flag to the rest.....of course the olympic music was playing in the back groundThe next day was moved out to the pavilion for the games. We had alot of fun and everyone that could, participated. Those that couldn't were able to cheer on their team. We had four different events. The balloon toss, the rely, the sponge game and the obstacle course. The sponge game was a lot of fun and with it being close to 100 degrees outside no one objected to getting a little wet.

More pictures of the sponge game.
This was the start of the rely race. When it was all over we had four awards...one for each team. It was a lot of fun and I had a great time seeing everyone having a good time and getting to know each other. I know that Grandma and Grandpa were looking down loving that we were together as a family, playing games and having a great time together. Thanks for coming and making it a great reunion. I can't wait for the next one.