Sandberg Family Reunion- Awards Ceremony/Country Presentations

Last Sandberg reunion, post, I think it's time to move on to the next reunion ;). 

On Saturday night we had country presentations where the families were able to present something about their country if they wanted to. Our family decided to do a traditional Filipino dance, the Tinikling. It is suppose to represent birds running away from the traps set by rice farmers. Each couple dances over two bamboo poles that are rhythmically clapped together (yes, there were a lot of caught ankles during practice). It took a little/lot of arm twisting to get everyone in our family on board with performing, but we did it! We are not exactly a musically talented or performance heavy family, so getting everyone on board and together was a great feat and everyone did great and worked hard for this performance. Chris, Reah, Robert and I were dancers and my mom, my dad, Richard, and Michael were the bamboo clappers. 

Micah and Julia were suppose to dance during a part too. Micah sat patiently waiting for his turn and did his part, but it was so late by the time we got to this part of the night that Julia just wanted to go to bed. She was laying down on a bench to the side.

USA performed a synchronized "swimming" act to "Party in The USA".

The audience getting ready for the show.

Don tricking us into learning German.

Family photos the next day.

Sandberg Family Reunion- Marshmallow War!

Another thing we made at the reunion were marshmallow blowers out of PVC pipe so we could have a giant marshmallow fight. When we were getting set up Robert was going to be the only one from the Philippines competing, so he made me go and recruit more members of our team so they could play as a team.

The Philippines team getting ready.

We decided the space next to the pavilion was too small for the fight, so we all headed down to the east pasture.

Everyone was given a small bag of mini marshmallows to shot. The rules were when you got hit you were out, last man standing wins. Everyone got together with their teams and fight began. This was about halfway through the first fight, panoramic courtesy of Google auto-awesome.

The people who were out already.

Near the end of the fight

After the fight. Chris, from team Philippines, won the first fight by taking out two little girls from the Dutch team. :)

Then they decided to go again. This time to start out they they split into two sides, like a true war.

Sandberg Reunion- Three Legged Race

Robert and I had high hopes for the three legged race. After all, we did just run a half marathon together. Our legs weren't tied together, but we went the same pace the entire way and spent countless hours training together. So we thought we could do well in a 50 meter dash together.

There were three rounds so it didn't get too crowded for the runners. Julia and Dani were excited to race together in the first round. We handed off the camera to Haydee so we could get ready and told her take pictures of Julia racing, or crying. Julia is notorious for crying when she doesn't win.  Sure enough, only a few steps in their race Dani lost a shoe and they both went down. You can see Julia reaching up and crying for me from the ground after they fell. Adrianna and Brietta look like they are doing good though.

Here we are getting ready for our round, with Julia clinging to me and still crying because they fell and didn't get to finish.

We ended up winning that round.

The last round running...

...and falling.

We ran two other rounds, taking the top two from each race to get to a final. On the final race Robert and I were doing well when we felt our tie come loose. It had frayed in half at one of the seams. So we ended up not even placing because we couldn't finish the final race :(

Congrats to the winners! Sweden, Fiji, and USA.

P.S. Thanks Haydee for taking the pictures!

Sandberg Family Reunion- Hula Hoop Competition

I have to admit that although I did compete in this competition, I only lasted about five seconds and then I lost so I went inside to help Reah with her dessert for dinner that night (Coconut Rice). So I really don't know who won, but I do know that the winners were amazing and could probably go on hula hooping forever.

 On the way down already

I'm not sure, but I'm guessing Kelly didn't win either.

 Dylan definitely beat me.

 So did Chelsea. Look at that concentration. Actually, she made it look easy.

 These two were going on forever. I wish I could tell you who won, or how they actually came up with a winner because when I left it didn't seem like there could be just one winner...

Update: I have the results! Per Kelly: Chelsie was first, Callie second, and Dylan and Brietta tired for third. They started asking them to do specific tricks while they hula hooped.

Sandberg Family Reunion- Regatta Races

One of our Olympic Events was a rain gutter regatta race using boats we built out of duct tape and popsicle sticks. The boats were fun to design and build, but once we got them in the water most of us realized we know very little about boat design because most of them immediately sank, or tipped over, over didn't fit in the rain gutter... My own boat was pretty water tight, but it leaned to the left and the sail, which I had stuck on the front, was in the wrong spot making my boat lean forward as well. After some tweaking, some of the boats were deemed water ready, while some of us opted to throw in the metaphorical towel. I tweaked mine a little, but decided I didn't have enough time to fix it as much as it needed so I never did race my boat.

Later that afternoon whoever wanted to race their boats raced in pairs outside the pavilion in two rain gutters.

This is one of the later races, but it's my only auto-awesome. These two will both ultimately come in the top three.

Before the races began Conner tests out his boat. A lot of the little kid has fun "testing" out boats before we started, including Micah.

Some of the first racers.

Brietta's boat was taking on water, but we played that you could pick your boat up and dump the water out to finish the race. Robert was actually not even racing his own boat. Michael built this boat and took time to make sure it could compete, but then left to go hike Mossy Cave before the competition began. Team Philippines couldn't let a good boat go unused though.

Some of our youngest racers.

The crowd waiting anxiously at the finish line.

A few more racers who made it past the first round.

I like the water splashing up. Cayden was working hard!

This was down to the last four. The winner here races for the gold. The Netherlands won...

...so The Philippines was forced to compete against each other for bronze. Chris beat out Robert/Michael and won a bronze for The Philippines.

The gold medal race. The Netherlands won, Micronesia got the silver!