Good times!!

Last weekend was the annual Cox Family Reunion in Richfield. The Cox's are my mom's side of the family. Ever since I can remember we've done a three day camp out. Everyone arrives Thursday, we split into teams and play ridiculous games on Friday, Friday night we have a bon fire and awards ceremony where the winning team receives all bragging rights, then Saturday we break camp and start looking forward to the next year. Well, the last few years we have shortened the reunion. Some of the older cousins have a hard time taking the time off of work and since Grandpa passed away two years ago, Grandma no longer has him to pull the trailer to the camp site. So we now meet in Richfield to have a barbecue Friday night and then play games at a local park and visit all day Saturday. SO MUCH FUN!!

I L.O.V.E. hanging out with the aunts and uncles and cousins and first cousins once removed and second cousins and Grandma!! It's so fun! We laugh, we act like we're twelve, there's great food and even better conversation. And I love watching my kids make the same kinds of memories that I did growing up.

So this year, Jason and I didn't make the barbecue, but got down to Richfield in time for the games on Saturday, which is where all the fun is anyway. My mom and her siblings each take turns. One year one family does games and another does the location and food. Then they rotate (there are eight kids in her family). This year it was Aunt Jo's turn. We were divided into four teams and given a colored fabric strip to tie on our arms, waists, heads, or where ever to identify ourselves.

They started out with a game for the younger kids. There was a kiddie pool full of saw dust. Three kids from each of the four teams lined up and each had one minute to dig out as much candy as they could. Payson wasn't too sure she wanted to get dirty but found a few pieces of candy. By the time we got to Benjamin (the last one on our team to dig) we had six pieces in our bucket. We were getting smoked by the other teams! Then Benjamin jumped in and by the end we were the winners with a whopping 86 pieces of candy!! GO BENJAMIN!!

Later in the afternoon we found Sophia and Payson carrying the bucket of candy around (now mostly wrappers) and telling everyone, "We're going to have a picnic!"

(that's Benjamin to the left of Payson)

The next game was Crab Ball. For the adults. Seriously. How long has it been since you've played crab ball? I had forgotten the muscles it takes to walk on your hands that way! But the game was hysterical!! Old men crab walking as quickly as they could to kick this giant blue blow up ball past the other teams goal. The grunting and groaning was hilarious! My family is a little competitive. Some players even resorted to sitting on top of other teams members to prevent them from assisting their team! (Thanks, Zach).

(Jason with some of the kids from the orange team making sure he understands all the rules)

On your mark, get set, GO!!!

Maren was on my team. Go team purple! We won. Maren was so aggressive! It was adorable! Isn't she so cute?!

The next game was creating rockets from a table of random materials. The highest launching rocket was the winner. Aunt Jo had distributed all the family engineers evenly on the teams, and we basically let Lon build our rockets. I helped decorate. =)

(me from my best angle...behind)

They had also set up a cute little craft table for all the little kids. Daddy helped Payson make a necklace. I love this picture of them. So sweet!

Madie

Dad with his AWESOME yellow team bandana

Brennan being Brennan
Cute, cute Grandma
At first glance, Brennan looks like he's being all sweet and hugging Madie. When you look closely, he's actually choking her with her own arms. What a good older brother!!
Payson playing with the boys, Benjamin and Johnny


Payson and the girls (Sophia and Emma Leigh) playing with their "pet lion"Flattering picture, I know. But I never post anything of myself, so here I am!!
I could eat him!!

Payson with her purple head band!! Yay team!! We didn't win the rocket launching, but we won overall!! And it really was all because of Benjamin and his crazy candy finding skills!

So that was our family reunion! Can't wait for next year!