New Years & The Earl Family Reunion

This is matt and his cousins from the reunion (no spouses or kids)

This year was our family's turn to host the Earl reunion.  It was the week of New Year's and we kicked it off with a big new years eve party at the church.  We had rooms with toys and dress up and games for the kids, in the over flow we set up our Rock Band game and Barry brought their new wii.  We had lots of food, kiddos sleeping in pack n' plays in classrooms and a talent show, that was lots of fun.  At 11pm (all the parents voted not to wait until midnight) we did a countdown and opened the stagae curtains and pushed TONS of balloons out into the gym and the kids had mardi gras beads and noise makers and we yelled "Happy New Year", then we got to clean up and head home.

It was a pretty fun night and Lily stayed awake the whole time!  I was SO suprised!  Contrarily, Izzie slept the whole time (from about 6:30 pm on), so that was nice!  Matt and I played our guitars and sang "lucky" by Jason Mraz and Colby Callet (I don't remember how to spell her name??), Lily sang the 'wise man' song, and wanted to sing another, but we cut her off. I wan't sure how she would do because sometimes she is pretty shy, but she totally got up there and sang out right into the mike and didn't want to get off stage.  She couldn't be our kid, could she??  Anyway, she did great, and I think that she was inspired by her cousin Langley who is 3.  She got up before us and sang "popular" along with the wicked sound track, she knows all the words and is a bit of a ham, so it was hilarious.  she stole the show.

Langley, Tom & LilyMatt & Me singing "Lucky"

The next day we hung out at matt's parent's casa with all the relatives, well really I ended up with all the boys (mostly inlaws) and Matt watching the Oregon vs Ohio State game.  We are big oregon fans, so it was a bit of a devastating loss for us.  One of Matt's cousin's family is living in Ohio right now, so they were happy...grumble, grumble. Anyway, we ended up watching Football for alot of the time instead of socializing, but we had a good time.

Saturday morning was the 'family olymipics', which I was solely responsible for.  They turned out great, and I am SO glad, cause you just never know how those kinds of things will go.  We played the spoon game, had a funny relay race where you had to pull out a funny thing to do beofre you could run back or else a fun way to go back, did a board walk, classic 3 legged race (which matt and I TOTALLY would have won had we not been DQ'ed!) and then parent/child blindfolded pudding feeding.  Everybody was great sports and participated and said nice things to me about it being fun, so I was really happy with it.  I made gold medals for everyone and my mother-in-law bought a big bag of candy to hand out afterwards.

Later that day most of the guys went golfing and us girls sat around and gabbed for several hours, it was lots of fun.  That night was a girls dinner, since the guys went golfing, but I skipped it because I am lame.  No...Well...ok, yes.  But I was really worn out and the boys didn't get back from golfing until 7, which is when the girls normally go to bed and we had to take them home and bathe them and I still had all my Primary stuff to prepare for the next day, plus I was really tired and worn out from setting up/running/stressing out over/cleaning up the family olympic stuff.  Anyway, maybe next reunion when I am not in charge of anything I'll go.

But hey, I stayed and visited with all the people ALL DAY when matt was golfing.  I didn't go home at all, which is huge for me.  I don't come from a big happy/loud family that gets together alot [they are loud, just not happy or at least not big] :) and it has taken me a long time to get comfy with Matt's big family situation. I LOVE them, but lets face it, it is kind of intimidating to be left alone with them with no spouse as a buffer :)  They are a big crowd who all know each other really well, and I tend to get quiet and just kind of shut down when faced with big groups of people (I am much better in small groups).  But I am finally pretty comfortable with all of Matt's family.  I have always really loved them and appreciated them, but like I said the first 5 years I was a little scared of them.  I guess that I am just too used to dysfunction :)

Anyway, in general it was the most comfortable I have been at an Earl family reunion yet.  I had a great time and LOVED getting to know people more.  I am actually really looking forward to the 2011 reunion in UT.

As soon as the reunion was over I got the stomach flu.  Yuck.  Which I then gave to Matt and Lily.  Non-stop puking for 2 days followed by intermitten puking as you clean up your 2 years old vomit (including having to wash it out of her hair) = MISERY.  Right afterwards I got a sore throat, which I was hoping was just from the ridiculous amounts of throwing up that had been happening (I still don't know where it all came from) but then it turned into a full blown cold just in time for Izzie's birthday party.  Which is what my next post will catch up on.  Not the cold.  the birthday party.  and maybe the cold.  a little.  but mostly party.  Stick around folks, cake covered 1 year old baby pics coming soon!