Calderwood Family Reunion 2013- Northern Idaho Style

This past week we went up to Northern Idaho for the Calderwood family reunion.  It was my uncle Lloyd's turn to host it, so he arranged to have us meet at Farragut State Park, right on the shores of the beautiful Lake Pend Oreille.  That area is so gorgeous.  We drove up Wednesday and spent the night at my cousin John's house.  It was great catching up with him and his wife.  The next day we went down to Coeur d' Alene to meet up with my brother and his family who had just rolled into town as well.  We went down to the beach and let the kids play with their cousins for a while.

We relaxed in the park and let them burn off some energy after having been in the car for almost 12 hours the day before.

That afternoon we went to Farragut State park and set up camp.  We didn't bring our trailer because we thought we would save some gas money.  We wished we had brought it.  It was hot up there, and we would have loved to have been in our trailer enjoying the air conditioner.
Friday morning my parents arrived, as well as Kristin and her husband and his parents.  We enjoyed chilling and hanging out a bunch while the kids ran around, wrestled, got dirty and climbed trees.

Cole and the others had a great time climbing all the trees in the area.

 Aubrey and Aspen were inseparable.  I guess that's what happens when cousins who both have only brothers get together.  They crave girls to play with.

We had some fun group activities like tatoos.  Tucker is sporting his two bicep tats.

After lunch we went down to the beach and had a great time.

For those who haven't been to Northern Idaho, you are missing out.  The scenery is fantastic.

Lisa was enjoying the cool water on a hot day with my cousin Jared and his wife Tracy.

This photo reminds me of the silhouette of the gorilla at the zoo with his arms stretched.  Do you have the same wingspan as a gorilla?

The Calderwood men were in photograph mode for a while.

Carson wins for most impressive camera and lens.

The two love birds snuggling on the beach ;)

Blake loves guns of all types.  He really enjoyed squirting everyone with his water guns.

Carson brought his go-pro camera and the kids had a ton of fun with it.

Carson and I even started launching the kids into the water.

They were loving it.

It was a really fun afternoon on the beach before the main events of the reunion.

Here is a photo of our two tents.  We put the kids in the big tent and Lisa and I stayed in the backpacking tent.  In all it wasn't bad to be tent camping.  The camp ground had great bathrooms with showers, so we didn't really miss our trailer too much.

That night we did some dutch oven chicken and potatoes.

While the food was cooking we had our annual auction as well.

For years my dad has been the auctioneer.  The money raised from the auction each year helps to pay for reunion stuff.  People bring home made stuff to auction off.  Here is some coveted raspberry syrup up for auction.

We shared some family history stuff, and had a tribute to my late Aunt Myrna.  It was a very touching tribute from my Aunt Lola.  We all miss my aunt Myrna dearly.

Then after the tribute, much to our surprise my Uncle Lloyd arranged to have a Scottish bagpipe player show up.  Calderwood's are from Scotland, and we are very proud and grateful for our Scottish heritage.

Here is a video of him playing "Scotland the Brave".  If this makes your blood start to get excited or brings a tear to your eye, you might be a Scot.  It was an awesome moment.

Blake fell asleep shortly after returning from the beach.  I was trying to feed him some dinner after I woke him up. 

Here are three of the handsomest men you will ever meet: my brother Carson, me, and my cousin John.  John was attending optometry school in Chicago when Lisa and I met.  I love these guys.

Here are the three children of Mickey and Cerola Calderwood.  At least I'm taller than my sister.

And a picture of the three siblings with the spouses.

After the dinner, auction and festivities we returned back to our campsite and got a fire rolling.  The kids were super pumped to roast some marshmallows.  Here Aspen, Aubrey and Kelsie patiently await their turn.

Blake even made his own home made marshmallow roasters.  Funny kid.

The next day we packed up camp and headed to Pasco, Washington to surprise Lisa's sister Heather.  We had arranged with Dan before hand to stay with them and he promised to keep it a secret.  When we pulled up to their house Saturday, Lisa went and knocked on the door.  Needless to say, Heather was very shocked to see us standing there.  We had fun with them that night and let the cousins play together.
It was a really fun trip, even if we put about 1700 miles on the truck.  I think we need to have the family reunion in Northern Idaho every time it is Uncle Lloyd's turn to host.

Pictures July 2013

Relay for Life

 

I participated in the Wasatch County Relay for Life on July 11-12th. I joined an existing team from my ward and we became the Tiki Warriors. The Relay started Friday night and someone from each team had to walk continuously until 8 or 9 am Saturday morning. Because I'm a survivor my family and I were able to partake of the Survivor's Dinner and then I did my survivors lap. Along the route were all the luminaria bags that were either donated or purchased to honor cancer victims. I had 3 bags that my kids helped decorate. This first one is Aubrey's bag. 

 

All of the survivors were presented and we told a little about ourselves. There was one other man with brain cancer.

On our survivors lap. Blake refused to walk, so I carried him the whole way. Aubrey is passing me the other direction in the photo and Cerola is in the background behind me with Cole. I have such wonderful family support. My Mom and Cody's parents came up for the evening.

 

The relay was run like a mini fair. There were games, food, rock climbing wall, bouncy house, petting zoo, face painting, etc. My kids enjoyed themselves until the sun went down and I took them home for bed.

 Cody was talked into trying out for the Mr. Relay for Life contest. I went to our last team meeting and presented my team with the idea of Cody being the contestant and everyone whole heartily agreed. He was a terrific sport and came up with his own talent. He dressed in Hawaiian Tiki Warrior attire and learned the dance from Napoleon Dynamite. My one job was to film him, but my battery died just as he began. Thankfully one of our teammates got part of his talent on his phone. 

Cody's talent (I'm working on getting the link fixed.)

 After an awesome performance, the "men" had to answer some trivia questions and then were "judged" by seeing who could raise the most money. Cody won by a landslide and collected $122 for the ACS. He was crowned Mr. Relay 2013.

 I've got the best husband! Seriously who else would compete for something like this? He was a little worried about his outfit before the competition, but when he saw who he was competing against that worry went away. All the other contestants were dressed in drag. He was the real man up there! The man on the far left was so good at his character that many people wondered if he wasn't really a woman. His talent was belly dancing. Here is the link to the award ceremony.

 There were hundreds of luminaria's lit up along our pathway and I finally found my last two bags. This is my brain cancer friend, Jen Roper. She and I were featured in a KSL investigative report about the high number of brain cancer concurrences in our neighborhood growing up. I never posted the links to those, so I will later.

1st segment from KSL report

 http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=25197233

2nd segment from KSL interview

http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=25209948