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.

Our New House

We moved about a month ago to a new house. We only moved a few blocks from our old house. We are still in our same Stake but just a newer neighborhood with bigger homes. It is fun to have space and finally some place for storage. As always the move was bitter sweet. It was hard to move from our first home where we lived for ten years...but it was time to move on. The kids were needing some space and we wanted to move before Anna starts Junior High next year. So here are some pictures.

One of the things the kids really love is all the cement so there is plenty of room to ride ripsticks, bikes and scooters. Plus there is always other kids outside to play with.
This is the upstairs familyroom. It doesn't have a formal living room just this familyroom hooked to the kitchen. There is also a family room downstairs. I didn't take a picture because it isn't put together yet.....same with the bedrooms. Each of the kids have their own bedroom which just confirmed what I always suspected.....Anna is the messy one. Now she has no one else to blame.
This is the kitchen. One of my favorite parts of the house. It is so nice to finally have some cabinet space. The cabinets are only about half full. Also it has two dishwashers, two sinks and two ovens...one gas and one electric....I might have to learn to cook.

This is Craig's favorite part. He finally has his own garage. I am not allowed to put any of my stuff in it.....He does let the kids put their bikes in there but the rest is filled with his stuff. It isn't quite finished but that is Craig's project just as soon as he is finished with school. So there is the quick tour. I will add pictures of the rest as we get things put together.

Are they all yours?

When we were watching Kerry's kids instead of just sitting home all of the time we tried to go out and do things that they don't have in Spokane. This is probably not what a sane person would do but we don't like to just sit at home. We had to take 2 vans everywhere we went and we had weird looks and some just asked if they were all ours. So to list everywhere we went....Temple Square, the Mayan, Saw Walle at the Drive-in, the park, McDonalds and the Church History Museum. Not to bad for 10 days.

Here we have Ben, Anna, Sophia, Amanda, Abe, Kate, Elsa, Kayla and Zach at the reflection pond at Temple Square.

Kayla and Elsa loved to sit out on the swing by themselves and have "Girl Talk." I took this picture through the back window when they weren't watching.

This is Ben and Amanda playing in the water fountain at the Conference Center.

Here is everyone in there pajamas waiting for the movie to start.

***Kudos to Anna: I have to add a little note of thanks to Anna. I couldn't have made it through the week without her helping me with everything from picking up to watching Sophia and Ben!!!Love you Anna!!

Kayla's Baptism

Kayla was Baptized on July 5th. Because it was the end of our family reunion all of my family was able to come except Jarom and Liina who couldn't make it. Kayla loved that we had so many people at her baptism. Kayla looked beautiful and was so excited that it was finally here.

I was hoping to get a family picture with all of us together....but with so many people over after the baptism all I could get together was Craig, Kayla and myself.


Congratulation Kayla!!!

The 4th of July

We finished off our reunion with fireworks up in Park City. I have never been so close as we were at the Silver King. The fireworks were shot off in the parking lot so we were just on the grass right next to it. The kids loved being so close.

This is Anna, Kayla and Hunter waiting for the fireworks to begin.

Spencer and Zach some how managed to grab some seats.

Kayla, Elsa and Sophia.

Sweltering

I am just updating my week. Things have been going well so far. We are now in sort of a routine and though it is still hectic it isn't total chaos. But the intensity level is once again lifted. Tonight my central air conditioner went out. So we will just say that the fact that my house is 85 degrees still at 10:00pm at night has add an additon stress on everyone. This has seemed to up the contention in the house and a little of the homesickness. Luckily Craig's friend who does heat and air conditioning is willing to come up from Ephraim tomorrow morning and fix it for us!!! So hopefully we will only have one really hot night.

Things you forget

It is after 11:00 pm and my house is quiet. The last couple of weeks have been crazy at my house. Craig is taking 12 credits at USU. We had our famiy reunion over the 4th of July. I have had my sisters here for the last couple of weeks so we have been doing lots of family activities together. Kayla was just baptized last weekend. We are moving in a week and a half and I am in charge of my Dad's family reunion in about three weeks. So I will be updating July in pieces and it may take me most of August to get caught up. But right now I just want to blog about the present situation. As of last Friday I have an addition 5 children staying with us ranging in age of 10 down to 1 years of age. My sister Kerry and her husband went to Europe with our parents for 10 days. The kids have had a great time together. They only get to see each other about once a year because Kerry lives in Spokane Washington. I will say that I have forgotten what it is like to have a baby. Now my youngest is 4 which you would think that I would have remembered but you forget how intense life is with a 1 year old. I thought about the obvious stuff like falling down the stairs and keeping cleaning solution, knives anything dangerous our of reach....it is the more suttle things that had slipped my mind. So things that I have been reminded of.....you can't leave the bathroom door open or you will find your 1 year old smiling and laughing as he is playing in the toliet. Now the trick isn't for you to remember to shut the bathroom door but to get the other kids to remember to shut the bathroon door. We have lost a couple of hair accessories down the toilet because I refuse to fish them out. The other thing is how quickly things can go from good to meltdown. One minute they are all happy the next .....well you know. This was well evident in Sacrament meeting today and of course the meeting went over about 15 minutes. Luckily all the other kids did really well and Ben was the only one that had to be taken out. I did have to laugh at when my neice Elsa ( who will be eight tomorrow) said that our sacrament meeting was really noisy....oblivious to the fact the we were a great contributor to the noise. The last thing is that you know longer need a vacuum because they are more than happy to pick up and eat everything they find on the floor. I would not consider my floor dirty but you think about it a little differently when you know any little piece of anything is going into his mouth. We did get some funny looks with nine kids at church today and someone did ask Craig if they were all his. I remember the days when nine kids wasn't that unusual and our family of 6 kids seemed on the small side. The other thing I forgot is how fun it is to make them laugh. That makes all the other stuff worth it. Well I guess I need to sign off and get some sleep.