Ramiro Family Reunion- Yellowstone

Now onto another family reunion. My mom's family, the Ramiro's, decided that this year for the first time ever they wanted to rent a cabin somewhere and do a family reunion. They decided to rent a cabin in Island Park, ID where some of the family had gone before. A lot of the Ramiro's had never been to Yellowstone, and the cabin was close enough to drive to Yellowstone for a day to see some of the sites.

The most important part of Yellowstone is to see Old Faithful, right? So on our one day in Yellowstone we made sure everyone saw Old Faithful by going there first. Julia did not want her picture taken at all during this trip, so here is her hand with Old Faithful in the background as we wait. I am pretty impressed with how well they can tell when it is going off, it is suppose to go off within a 20 minute window, and it went off four minutes after they predicted it.

Cousins.

 There it goes!

And then the wind shifted and we got misted! Poor Camden didn't know what was going on and why he was suddenly getting wet.

Micah and Julia trying to keep out of the sun. Micah loves wearing his hat, he loves to accessorize in general. The other two always take their hats off, but Micah's cool like that.

My cousin Corey. Nobody wanted to stand still long enough to take a good picture with Old Faithful going off in the background.

Afterwards we walked around the geyser area behind Old Faithful.

We saw another geyser going off in the distance. It goes off every 10 hours to five days. Too far for us to walk clear out there though.

 Another area of the park. The steam made it feel like a really hot humid day.

 These colors were amazing.

Julia still not looking at the camera.

Grandma Sandberg is Camden's new favorite person. Whenever she gets home he immediately crawls over to her to get her to pick him up.

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.