Woods Fam Bam Reunion

Family reunions are great because you get to see your family. I especially looked forward to the Woods family reunion we had last week down in Medford because now that my family and extended family members are getting older, going to college, going on missions, and getting married, I hardily get to see everyone together.

This family reunion was the most well planned family reunion I’ve ever been to. We had a service auction where everyone had to auction off a service they could give to someone. There was a white elephant gift exchange (always a crowd favorite). We even had a talent show. There was also a lot of free time that I didn't know what to do with yourself. 

Top 10 Moments of the Family Reunion

10. The Name Game- We played the name game on the way to Medford. I thought everyone knew what this was, but Patrick had not heard of it before. We taught him. You play by picking a letter and a gender. Then you take turns giving names that fit the category-- no repeats. For example, we played “B” for boy names. You start the first few rounds with normal names like Bruce, Bryan, Bob, etc. Then you progress to more obscure but still acceptable names like Baxter, Blaze, Bartholomew. By the end, you are grasping for anything, morphing words, using your surroundings as inspirations, making up words, just trying to get lucky. Moral of the story: Buckles is not and should never be a real name.

9. Far East- Every time we go down to Medford, we eat at Far East. It is a Chinese restaurant that is like crack cocaine for the family; we’ve got to get our fix. But, like crack, there are consequences....

Kevan and Olive pre #7

8. Caricature- Something you might not have known about me, I like drawing caricatures. For the service auction, I offered to draw a caricature of the highest bidder. James won. I drew him as a magician because he is a legit magician. He makes like $100 in a day for busking at the farmers market.

7. White Elephant Tears- I brought a ski-ball-esk toy game for my white elephant gift. Krislyn opened it originally, then my 4 year old niece wanted it so she stole it, then Kevan tried take it from her. That was a mistake. She started crying. Kevan was on her bad list for like 2 full hours- which is a long time for children to remember to be mad for. Note to parents: kids should not play white elephant.

The Game of Tears

6. Mithing Tooth- Our talent for the talent show was to read/act funny poems.  It turned out well. Below should be a video of us practicing in our house. It is surprisingly difficult to read from a script and move a puppet at the same time. My favorite part about this video is Patrick's sinking puppet. He doesn't realize it's happening until 38 seconds in.

5. Back Porch Dinning- I have the fondest memories of eating meals on my grandparents’ back deck. I’ve had many of my birthday parties on that porch. It is just so pretty and calm back there. It does share a fence with a less than well maintained grave yard, which is a little creepy, but at least the neighbors aren’t loud. We had breakfast and dinner and celebrated recent/upcoming birthdays on the deck this time.

4. Rube Goldberg Machine- As I mentioned before, there is a lot of free time at family reunions. Patrick and my cousin Andrew spent most of their time building a Rube Goldburg Machine. My favorite part was the zip-line.

 

3. The Break Down- The car broke down. You know how all the tires are supposed to be going the same direction? Well something in the steering malfunctioned so our front right tire looked like it was pigeon toed. We didn’t know when the car would be able to get fixed and we didn’t want to get stuck in Medford, so Patrick and I drove up to Eugene with Kevan and Krislyn. We still had to get from Eugene to Corvallis (about an hour more). Our friends came to our rescue without hesitation and we made it to Corvallis. Sometimes its nice to need help because you get to find out how great your friends are.

2. The Temple- Patrick and I went to the Medford Oregon LDS Temple. I went to the dedication of it back when I was 10. Back then, I was allowed to walk through it with protective booties on my feet, but this was the first time I was able to walk through it to do the work. Patrick and I always look forward to going to the temple, but this time there was a little more excitement, because they had a new video. I have only been endowed for 9 months so the old video was still new to me, but the new one is beautifully inspired. Apparently, only select temples are showing the new video, and I don’t think Portland is one of them. Also, if you’re not LDS, and you have questions about temples, feel free to ask me.

1. Perfectly Wrapped- James wrapped his white elephant gift perfectly.

Awesome