Thanksgiving at Aspen Grove

For Thanksgiving this year, we spent Wednesday to Saturday up in a lodge at Aspen Grove. It was our Sanders Family Reunion, and the majority of our huge clan was able to make it for part or all of it! It was so much fun to say the least. We took up a whole floor, and we had a big common area and kitchen. I just love being surrounded by family, and this was such a great way to spend the holiday!

Here are some pictures of the scenery. Aspen Grove is located behind Mt. Timpanogas. It was so so cold!


From the balcony.


They have a huge game room with ping pong, pool tables, a tv, air hockey, etc. This is the bridge we had to take from our lodge to that one.

This is the view from the park, AKA the football field/sledding hill.

The first night we could check in around 4:00pm, and we had people coming in until the last group arrived from California after 10:00pm. We had dinner, played games, and chatted

late that first night.
The next morning was Thanksgiving, and in proper Thanksgiving fashion we had a Turkey Bowl! Here are most of the players before.

Cory, Todd, Jeremy, Brock, Justin, Dave, Brian, Jay, and Jeremy.

There was about a foot of snow which definitely made things a little harder, but more fun for those of us watching.

Then, at about half time, I jumped in to replace Joy. You can see me in the yellow cheering because I just got a touchdown! It was pretty awesome! It was a long pass, and the whole time it was in the air I was saying "Please please please please" and I caught it! Pretty sure we still lost.

It was so dang cold that we didn't want to take off our hats, coats, pants, and gloves, but we still managed to get pretty sweaty! This is my cousin Aaron.

The whole group.

I don't know how Justin even played! His glasses were fogged up the whole time!


Jace and Nixon kept busy playing in the snow while daddy and I played.

Here are some fun outside shots.

My cousin Valerie

My cousin Joy's son Aiden

Joy

Aiden sledding

Brock going to rescue Nixon

Jace doing snow angels!

View from the sidelines of the football field.

Granny and Grandpa

We also did a lot of just hanging around.

Here are the kids in our room Thanksgiving morning.

Abby Cates catching up on some reading.

Bella and Leah

Joy and Kim trying a new hair-do on Julia

Annie, Bella, Liz, and Julia

Aiden, Joy, Justin, Grandpa, Juliette, and Cesar

Me, Brock, Leila, and Julia

Leila getting some loves from Granny. Granny has to get all the kisses she can while she's here visiting from Malaysia.

Nolan and Jaylee

Cesar, Valerie, Audrey, and Jeremy

Brian, Jeremy, and Uncle Brad

Aunt Sheri and Jeremy's daughter Whitney

Grandpa Sanders and one of his great granddaughters Juliette

Jusin and Grandpa - Josh in the back

Jeremy, Aaron, Audrey, and Maria --Jaylee and Scarlett in front

Me and Granny getting the fruit salad ready

Some of the kids gathered to watch a movie.

Jaylee, Allison, Bella, Jace, Nixon, and Leah

Catching up. Jeremy, Dave, Justin, and Mike

There was a lot of game playing going on throughout the weekend too.

Even the kids got in on the poker fun

Nixon even played the Barbie board game with the girls

More poker. This is a serious game.

We gathered to take a family picture with everyone there after Thanksgiving dinner. I think they turned out pretty good! My little family is in the back, in the middle.

Then we took it outside to get the beautiful scenery. That is the back of Mt. Timpanogas behind us.

That night we all gathered around to play a game. I don't even know what to call it! The "stand on one foot while bending over to grab a bag in your teeth without falling" game. It was so dang funny! If you've never played this game before, it is one you need to try!

First the bag starts big and tall. Its not very hard to grab it at this level. Most people passed this round.

Valerie

Dave and Nolan

Maria

Jay

Even Annie who was 3 months pregnant could do it!

Then it gets a little tougher. You cut off the top two inches of the bag, and anyone who passed the last round tries again.

Justin

Aunt Vicki

Uncles Todd and Brad

Maria and Julia

Then you cut off two more inches and do it again.

Here's Jay and Brian

Brock

Aiden

And then when it gets really short, people start coming up with some interesting ways to get down to it!

Nolan started the "place one foot on top of the other and plie down" move.

Brock thought he'd better try that.

Brian hung in there with the "put your knee on your foot and grab your legs for stability" move.

Then it started getting really low! Here's where all my Yoga classes came in handy. I also went with Nolan's move.

Dane came up with his own style! He was hilarious. It looks here like he is going to try to suck it up!

Okay, now its only like a centimeter off the ground!

Bracing myself

And here I go! My hands are not touching, I swear!

Dane going for it!

And Abby does it too!

In the end since we couldn't make it any lower, it ended up being a three-way tie between Dane, Abby, and me! We were all pretty sore the next day!

The great-grand kids all made these cute little Thanksgiving hats.
Bella, Jaylee, Whitney, Scarlet

Leah, Jace, Nixon, Corey and Aiden

Then all the big girls decided we needed to wear them too!

Liz, Katie, Maria

Melanie, Julia, Joy, Valerie

Annie, Abby, Kim, Me, Treo

It is a tradition in the Sanders family, to play the "left-right" game on Thanksgiving. Where everyone brings a present and while Grandma Sanders reads a story, we all pass the present whenever the word left or right is said. Since grandma Sanders is no longer with us, my dad got to read it this year.

Here is everyone waiting for the story to begin.

And the other side of the room.

My aunt Robin put this whole weekend together. She was fabulous! She planned a game for all of us and called it something like "Who Wants to be an Amazing Survivor Millionaire?" The first day we had a bunch of tasks to complete like answering a bunch of questions about my Grandpa and his ancestors, doing a sudoku puzzle, a jigsaw puzzle, making a necklace, playing a song on a recorder, eating catnip or something, and others.

Then, day two, we had some more fun challenges. Here is Robin explaining the rules.

One task for each team: Build a 3 level tower out of cards. This one ended up being practically impossible since all the decks were brand new and really slippery.

Aaron is really consentrating here.

These guys had to eat a bunch of graham crackers and then whistle a song.

Here's my dad trying to take tiny stickers from this sheet to put them on a paper exactly how Robin had it done on her door. Harder than it seemed.

Each team had to roll two dice to get doubles 10 times.

Then, the bonus round was to eat some unknown substance. It was hilarious watching them all gag it down! Once Jay finished first, Aaron and Joy both thought it was over and spit it all back in their bowl. Then when they realized they were still going for second and third and fourth they had to eat it back up! It was so so gross! I was dying! Thanks so much Robin for all of your hard work! It was so much fun!

As mentioned earlier, they had a fun game room for us to play in. We had a huge ping pong tournament and, you guessed it, Brock was the big winner. It came down to him and Nolan in the finals.

Aiden

Me and Treo played in round one. I won :)

Brock

Then I played Nolan in round two. I lost :(

Julia

Nixon played air hockey with Uncle Todd while we were playing.

Then, after Julia and I had lost our games, we decided to play some pool.

Brock even won holding Miss Leila

Poor Jace was so sick this day. He was throwing up, and was so tired. He slept the whole time we were playing, and didn't want to eat anything because he just kept throwing up. At around 1 or 2 he I made him eat some apple sauce, and he finally was able to keep it down. He took a bath, and then was really hungry. He got better and better and was back to normal that evening. I really wanted to get pictures of the boys sledding, but the first day when Brock and Jace went, Nixon was napping so I had to stay with him, and then the next day when Brock took Nixon, Jace was so sick, so I had to stay with him! No pictures of sledding. Oh well, they had tons of fun. You can be sure of that even with no pictures!

The last night we were there, we had a fun talent show. Here we are waiting for it to start

Leila Loo Hoo

Kash and Leila

Jace wanted to take a picture of me and the babe

Dane and Annie were in charge of putting the talent show together, and they had a few people get up and re-enact some of the highlights of the weekend.

Here's Jeremy showing some of the funny things we did while playing Guesstures.

Nolan and Brock got up to replay the last awesome shot in the ping pong tournament.

Abby showed us her awesome fall while sledding

Then, Joy's talent was holding the plank position for EVER! We all got down to see who could do it the longest.

Even little Jaylee wanted to try!


Leah and Bella showed us some of their gymnastics

Julia sang a couple of songs

Granny, Grandpa, Robin and Craig did a funny skit

My aunt Vicki is a true Native American, and she along with her daughter Audrey and her daughter-in-law Marah did a beautiful "dance" in remembrance of my cousin Daniel who passed away several years ago.

This reunion was so much fun, like they all are. Thanks to everyone who made it a success, especially Robin. We missed those who couldn't come, and hope to see you all next time! Lots of fun memories were made, and I can't wait for the next one! Aspen Grove 2012!