Biesinger Family Reunion 2010

Heber Valley Camp - this is the way I like to rough it!

Running water, toilets, showers, gas hooked up to stoves, refrigerators, tables, shade, cabins with beds...lots of great food and a wonderful family! 

Will's family loves to go camping---real camping like with very few conveniences around, and hikes to get water and go to the bathroom and horses to carry the stuff (that's really just the guys that go that kind of camping)...and they're good at it, whereas I'm walking around with my hands up, like a surgeon, afraid to touch anything because I feel like I have a few layers of dirt and germs on my hands.  I am definitely a girl of conveniences and routine and it's been a hard habit to break!  You'd think that after 17 years of camping with Will's family I would be a better camper.  They make it look too easy!

This is most of the Biesinger family.  Someone had the idea that I could take a family picture and have it look professional...ummm, I'm still just at the point and shoot, novice stage...everyone meant to be in the picture is in the picture, but that's as professional as I get!  I just walk around with my camera all the time so everyone thinks I take great pictures.

Michael, Angie, Lauren, Makayla, Katie Jane and Hanna

Emma and her best friend/twin sister cousin, Ashley

This is where we roughed it.  Each cabin sleeps 16 people, and the kids way outnumbered the adults in each cabin, so I fell asleep listening to the Pride and Prejudice soundtrack...earphones plugged so tight into my ears that I couldn't hear the loudest, noisiest child not going to sleep...it was heavenly!

Carol Anne...very camera shy, Carol Anne

Josh...finding the perfect rock!

Aunt Marlene scheduled the entire family to go through one of the challenge courses at the camp.  

Katie Jane and I had just finished a different challenge course a couple of days before at girls camp...yes, we had girls camp Monday through Friday the same week at the same place, which ended up turning out really well because we knew what to expect...and we had a couple of hours to go home, get re-packed, re-showered, but not quite re-energized before we drove right back to Heber for this family reunion.  I think Angie and Makayla did the same thing!  Girls RULE!!

Our first challenge as a group was to get everyone through this super poisonous spider web (oooooooh!)...without touching the web or using the same opening twice.  This is Andy being fed through.  Dangerous spider was closing in fast, too!

Jay took a picture of me when it was my turn to get fed through, or heaved through...one of the most humiliating things ever is having to be lifted...most girls might not care, but I'm always afraid someone is going to burst a blood vessel in their head trying to lift me.  I had to tell Will's uncle Gerald to not gasp and grunt as he tried to lift me through the web.  The kids said that the only thing that came close to touching the web...was my nose.  Not surprising to me because I always make reference to a certain large animal when speaking about my nose, it definitely brought more sincere thoughts of plastic surgery into my head!

Tasha went over the top of the web by skillfully using her high school cheer leading skills...yes, parents, those skills may come in handy someday!  Just like algebra!

Cassidy's brother, McKay??? I think!  Super cute kid with a beautiful smile like his sisters...no gasping or grunting sounds were used when they passed him through the web!

Emma and Makayla

Now we were on a sinking ship and the only thing we had to get us across the acid water which was full of man eating sharks, was this rope.  First we had to get the rope without touching the water...thus the shoe and the belts still attached to the rope...go ahead and take another look...and then once across everyone had to fit on a little "island".

It was fun watching big, strong guys do this, Katie Jane and I experienced the girly side of this challenge also.  The guys made it look so much easier!

And Marlene, not that it's your responsibility or anything, but when was the last time Brad washed those jeans? They were wearing him!! :)

Will was the anchor man...that's one of the biggest reasons I married him---because I knew that there would never be a way that I could "out-anchor" him!  I know I will always be the slightly smaller one in our marriage!

All  12+ people were supposed to fit on this little "island"...they didn't realize they were being eaten by acid water and man eating sharks!!!  When you play a game like this with a bunch of large, muscular Biesinger men...and lots of little girls, someone is bound to get shoved off!

I guess this part is considered a "ropes course"---climb the net, walk across the ladder and ride the zip line down!!  This is Donna---go Donna, go Donna!

This is my SIL, Lori---and I just noticed as I was enlarging this picture that Lori was wearing slip-on shoes!  Holy cow, Lori!!  How on earth did you do that?  I was shaking so bad...there would have been no way my shoes would have stayed on, but then---when Lori does something, she does it awesomely!

The hardest part, according to Emma, was the wait.

I could not BElieve that Emma dared do this!  I was sure that Jay would be the first one to say he didn't want to climb, and that Emma would be the second.  I was so proud of my kids!  Emma amazed me!

Can't you just see in her face what she's thinking?  "Wait a second!! Am I sure this is okay?"

Umm---yeah!

Lauren blazed through it as well.  Obviously all my kids had on their "Biesinger genes" this day!

Jay...my first chicken...showing his doting mother that he's not actually a chicken, but that she is!!

Katie Jane---no fear, and always full of animation for the camera!

Will does everything better with his tongue sticking out of his mouth!

Of course he jumped with perfect "AIRBORNE" form!

My turn to humiliate myself, which I did---because I always do---and I had to go after another SIL, Tasha had her turn.  She, of course, set the standard very high and did a very graceful arabesque on the rope ladder as she was walking and balancing her way across...something that I could not compete with!

I was shaking too bad.

And I, obviously, did not use perfect "AIRBORNE" form!

I want to be very Anne Shirley, and call this...The Lake of Shining Waters!

We got an hour to either row or paddle around the lake.  It was kind of sprinkling so I left my camera behind while we were on the water.  Will and I couldn't keep up with the kids in their canoe with our little paddle boat, so I would have only been taking pictures of all the plankton---and you know that I was thinking of Plankton on Spongebob the entire time---in the mirky, thick (that's an unappetizing way to describe water, eh?) lake!

There definitely was beauty...all around!

Thanks again, Marlene!  Can't wait until next year!