Beardall Family Reunion and Rieske Family Campout

At the end of June my dad's family had their family reunion.  Picnic, Bingo, Raffle, and a kids fish pond.  It was fun to spend the day with everyone and catch up.

The following week we went to Josh's family camping trip.  Aside from the Jeep deciding to overheat on the way for no apparent reason, never had a problem before and we haven't had one since, it was a lot of fun.  His family were a lot of fun.  I got to become better acquainted with them and even had some homemade rootbeer, dutch oven Carmel Turtle Brownies, and icecream.  Yes, that's right icecream.  I jokingly asked Uncle John if he was planning to make icecream as well.  The next thing I know, my joke has turned into a call to his daughter to bring icecream.  We went on some hikes, the boys went fishing and paintballing, played games, and did a little off roading.  I'm not allowed to ride Peter Pan's flight but off roading in the Jeep is not a problem evidently....

I played dominos, and hearts one day and I learned if you sit next to Carrie you lose, regardless of the game, and Uncle John is a Hearts shark.  (Only teasing Carrie)  I'll need to practice up next time.  Everyone takes turns making dinner at night and everyone eats together.  This was especially fun and gave a lot of time to spend together as a group.  One night right before dinner Josh's little cousin Paxton was taking Darin's hat and hiding it from him.  Not hiding it well, but trying to hide it just the same.  So he decided to take Josh's hat.  Josh is a much better playmate than Darin.  Josh would pretend he didn't see the hat, in plain sight, and started a game of hot and cold.  Josh would look, then Paxton would look, and then Jake would look.  It was hilarious.  Poor Josh had hurt his back during a midnight game of steal the flag.  So picture two 4 year olds hiding a hat from a 30 year old.  The adult is hobbling around with his hand on his back bending over slowly, described as looking more pregnant than I did.  The 4 year olds are trying to grasp the hot and cold concept and telling Josh, "No, it's under that table!"  Josh would continue to pretend he couldn't see it.  It was an amusing half hour.  Finally, Josh's back needed a break so he had the boys take turns hiding it from each other.  They forgot about him for about 15 minutes before they came back to the picnic tables together chanting, "Where is he?  Where is he?"  Little kids are too funny.  We roasted Giant "ManMallows" that Uncle John brought along and Jake fell asleep on Josh's lap.  It was a lot of fun and we are looking forward to next year's trip.

We came home on the 4th in the pouring rain.  It cleared up and we spent the evening at a friends house barbequing and watching the guys nearly start themselves on fire lighting fireworks.