The Rest of the Reunion

I'm a little waaaay behind on this blogging thing, so I'm going to try and fit the rest of the reunion week into one post. Hopefully I can still do it justice. We didn't have any major going-places kind of activities planned for the rest of the reunion week, so we just spent New Year's Eve and New Year's Day hanging out doing a bunch of different things. It was nice and relaxing.

There was an ongoing ping pong tournament-- even the little kids were involved. It was a lot of fun, but boy am I rusty. I loved watching Edith have her first experience playing ping pong. Just like in the bowling picture, the tongue is out (of course):

We put together a few puzzles during the week-- I was glad to finally take a turn as things settled down a bit. 

It seems that we're a family of talented puzzlers. This 1000 piece puzzle only took us a couple of hours to complete. It was a lot of fun.

We also had a family dance party and put the family band back together for the day.

Reunited and it feels so good...

There was lots of good food eaten during the week, and New Year's Eve was no exception. Rophone is so good at hanging out with the kids and interacting with them. A lot of the meals were found with him at a "kids" table, having conversations. I adore him.

I love how the two boys are so interested in whatever it is Edith is telling them. Little kid versions of adult conversations are so fun to listen to.

New Year's Eve is a perfect time to play games, of course. It's good to know the kids are learning how things are supposed to be done. :)

I sure do love my sisters. Aren't they gorgeous?

For real.

New Year's Day was spent hanging out and going outside, playing a lot of ball sports and just enjoying the great weather. Ginger was excited to teach everyone to play the new game she got for Christmas, Spikeball. It was a big hit.

My mom even got in on the Spikeball action, and she found a really convenient storage place for the extra balls. Ha!

The interactions between these four were super fun to watch.

Friday afternoon we gathered everyone together for a family game of kickball. If there's ever a next time, we'll be sure to keep it casual and not keep score. 

My sister, Martha, took this great photo of Pen and Ginger. I love my girls.

We closed out the reunion by treating the kids to s'mores comas and playing more games.

The perfect ending to a pretty darn great reunion. Ginger even told me that it's the best reunion we've had. Yay!

Peterson Family Reunion 2015: Zoo Day!

I was really excited for what we had planned for day 2 of the reunion: THE ZOO! The last time my family went to the zoo Bud was in a stroller, so none of the kids really remember it. Pen stayed back to work on college applications (and she's against zoos), but the rest of us were super excited.

I loved watching the kids as they saw animals in person that they'd only read about. And I loved seeing the animals, too. So cool.

Seeing the snakes up close was fascinating and I could have looked at them for ages-- a little easier and less stressful to do with glass separating us. :)

I admit to having mixed feelings about zoos, too, especially when the animals are housed in less than ideal conditions. But then I think of the role zoos play in animal conservation, and I feel better. And then I see this and I gasp in awe and delight:

Seriously! Look at all of that space! I didn't feel bad about this at all. It was beautiful. 

I could have stood there for hours. The funniest part was when this one giraffe just stood there looking at Big for a really long time and Big said, "That giraffe just keeps staring at me. It must be because I'm so good-looking." I'm sure that's it. Ha!

There were just so many neat things to see. We spent quite a while watching the dik-dik chew its cud. When it swallowed you could see this big lump travel down its skinny neck, and then, a moment later, the lump would travel back UP! Then it would chew for a minute and the process would repeat. Fascinating!

The horn on the rhinoceros was ginormous! 

Remember all of that reading Big and I used to do on alligators and crocodiles? Well, needless to say, he was pretty darn excited to see these.

Edith and Big fell more than just a little bit in love with the magnificent lions that were there. I loved watching the two of them as they watched the lions. We even got to hear a little snarly roar out of the male lion when the female nipped at him in annoyance after he woke her up. Way cool.

We finally convinced a tired Edith to take a turn in the stroller. She was embarrassed, thinking she was way too old, but I think we were all glad she did. I mean, we were walking the zoo all day the day after a 4 mile hike, tag, and bowling. I think we ALL wanted to ride in the stroller. 

As we were leaving, my family stopped in the zoo gift shop so the kids could get a souvenir of the trip with some money they received from Grandma and Grandpa Gorilla for Christmas. I had to forbid Big from purchasing a souvenir on the way to Arizona at the gas station convenience stores. They're full of so many treasures, I know, but I told him that the zoo was the only place he was allowed to spend his money. I think he's so glad he waited. I know I am. I got a really cool giraffe mug to remember my favorite exhibit by. What a fabulous time we all had at the zoo! We're already talking about when we can go back.

I think it ended up being a really good reunion activity, too. We got to interact a little, spread out a little...Ginger told me how much she loves the zoo (over and over again) and how it's the best reunion we've ever had...Big got a chance to tell some other people in the family all the stuff he knows about animals... perfect. 

We were all pretty exhausted so we just chilled out that evening. 

A great end to a really great day. What could possibly be next?