Gibbons' Family Reunion - Survivor Style

So we had an awesome time vacationing in Utah and Idaho over Labor Day weekend. Tyler's family does a reunion each Labor Day and this year we spent the weekend outside of Yellowstone camping and having fun. The theme was Survivor so each Gibbons family had a different color bandana--which helped finding the right family when little ones would run off (like Tessa!) And we made family flags. Tyler's dad did the artistic work for our family flag, "The Gibbons Bunch." It also says, "We're Grape!" :)We had competitions that tested the different families physically and mentally. It was a lot of fun. One of the mental competitions included drinking a shake containing random ingredients and Tyler participated for our family. His "shake" consisted of Oreo cookies, peanut butter, V8 juice, and Tobasco sauce. His was probably the least gross of all the combinations, but he was the only smart one who didn't drink. The reward of cookies was not worth the drinking of that. Nasty!


This next picture was the result of the physical competition - putting clothespins on your body until you couldn't take it anymore. Some of the littler kids didn't like this game too much.

The bubbles were a huge hit with all the kids. And I love these pictures because it shows a lot of 2nd cousins playing together with all the different colored bandanas.

We spent one day in Yellowstone National Park and saw lots of cool animals including bison, wolves, a bald eagle, and lots of elk. Some the elk we saw had babies with them and they were letting people get pretty close for pictures. Here's one with us in the foreground.

We also were able to enjoy Old Faithful, twice. Abby was a little nervous at first and even covered her ears while waiting for the geyser to go off because she thought it would be loud, but she really enjoyed it once it started.

Isn't this the cutest picture you've ever seen?

One of our last stops included the Gibbon Falls. Of course, we had to stop here. It was beautiful, but hard to get a picture of someone with the falls in the background. Here's our attempt. You can only see a small portion of the falls, but they're actually way larger.

We were able to spend a few extra days before and after Labor day weekend seeing our immediate families. We spent two days in Vernal with Tyler's parents where Abby loved checking grandpa's chicken coop for eggs and grandma's garden for vegetables.

We were able to spend a day in Provo with my brother John touring BYU again (man seeing current college students makes us feel old-they just look so young!) and getting my annual fix of Cafe Rio.

Finally, I have to finish with a few cute pictures of our Tessa. She is always our entertainment. Here she is on our airplane trip in her favorite spot - on the floor under Abby's seat.

In our cabin, Grandma had a drawer in the kitchen full of candy called Granny's cupboard so all the kids were always going in there to find a treat, even after Grandma hid the drawer. This didn't keep Tessa out. She decided to make her own treat drawer--the Tessa treat drawer.

The kids also loved taking a ride on Great Grandma Gibbons' scooter. Here's Tessa getting a ride with Grandpa. It didn't take her long to find out how to honk the horn and she just kept doing it over and over and over...

And finally, how can you have a trip with kids without someone having a messy ice cream face? Tessa really liked the soft serve chocolate ice cream cone she got after walking around Old Faithful.

So, that's our trip in a long nutshell. And besides the minor injuries of a busted lip and bloody nose by Tessa who tripped on a door jam, and a smashed thumbnail in the car door by me, we had a fun week spending time with the entire Gibbons' family. These kind of trips always go by way too quickly, but the time we spent together will never be forgotten.