Oh My Awesomeness: Garn Reunion

My mom's family gathers every three years for a Garn Reunion over July 4, and this was the year! Different original siblings take turns planning the reunion. My aunt Kris and her kids and their families did the planning this year and they pulled off a fabulously fun event. It was at the Homestead in Midway, Utah. Every family gets their own rooms (we get a group rate if we book our rooms in a certain period of time, usually about two years in advance). We drove up for two of the days, but next time I think we'll stay in the designated location, even if we live close by.

We met for three days, and they structured the first and last days to have family games from 10-12 in the morning, and games in the evening from 6-8. Then late nighters always stay up and play games, which is just about everyone. The middle day everyone only gathered in the evening. This way families that came to gather for the larger Garn family can fit in an immediate family reunion as well. It is a two-fer, so to speak. That worked well. Here is the group on the first day for the July 4th devotional.

I like to capture the games played for future youth events or reunions on Geoff's side, so here we go. I missed the kick-off game of bingo, where a large bingo card had bits of information to gather from everyone, such as the following: Speaks German, Owned a rotary phone, etc. You crossed off the square as you found someone who met the square's statement. Fun way to learn about each other.

We then had relays. Everyone was divided into four teams. Each team had to go through the following games:

Five members of the team had to pass cups of water over their heads to the last person who poured it into a bucket at the end of the line. The first to overflow their bucket won. There was one runner who took cups from the back to the front of the line again (several cups were going at a time), and several non-players were keeping the front buckets full of water.

Five members of the team with loose clothing passed a string down through their clothes until they were all connected, then they ran through several cones to an end point.

The tallest team member automatically participated in this game. A bag of panty hose had to be opened, a ball placed at the foot and the panty hose put on the head. A series of three items had to be knocked over: a small can, a water bottle and a cup.

A daring team member had to choose from a nasty selection of "mystery" drinks and gulp down a cup.

Six team members competed. All stood in a line with a stack of cups before them. The first person built a tower with the cups, the next person took them down to the stack, the next person built a tower, and so on.

Two team members had to sheets of dot stickers. One team member stood still while the two team members stuck their stickers on any bare skin of the still team member. First team to be done with their sheets of stickers won.

One member of each team had to pull tissues out of a tissue box. First to empty won.

I wasn't close to this event and missed the details, but from what I could tell, two team members were blindfolded. A few team members had some cards with photos on them. They had to describe the item in the photo to the blindfolded team members. Those blindfolded then ran to some items down the field to find what was described to them. The cardholding team members could yell directions.

Five team members sat in a line. At one end was a pile of about 10 balls, on the other was a basket. The team members had to pass the pile of balls down the line with only their feet and put them in the basket. If a ball fell on the ground it started over at the pile.

Two members from each team had to put together a puzzle. I participated in this event and putting a puzzle together under pressure is pretty intense!

The final event was a relay. The first was a runner with a child on their shoulders. The second runner had to be younger than 8. The final runner had to be older than 50.