FFR = Frandsen Family Reunion = Fabulous Fun Rendezvous

last weekend we went to our annual Frandsen Family Reunion in gunnison, utah. this year, it was the ronald frandsen family's turn to plan the festivities. shauna did an incredible job of coming up with fun activities for everyone to enjoy and then organizing everything just perfectly. our game plan was for everyone to compete in the Frandsen Olympic Games. and it was awesome.

we arrived on friday evening and enjoyed some delicious dinner and reconnected with all the relatives. (btw the frandsens are all the best cooks ever. the entire weekend was filled with as much delicious food as you can imagine.) after all the kiddos got to bed (will went to bed at an early 9:30pm. awesome, i know. he just didn't want to stop pushing those awesome trucks around *more to come on the trucks...), we began the tie dying. since we would all be participating in the olympics the following day, it was only necessary that we have team t-shirts. the teams were already decided (we broke up spouses and families so everyone had a chance to mingle with relatives of all ages), so we split up and each team decided on the country that they would represent. then, what else to do, but start tie dying our shirts the colors of our countries' flags?! tie dying was a little messy (pretty sure we dripped a little dye on kelley and kathy's patio, and their grass is a beautiful assortment of colors), but loads of fun. we had some experts in the mix: anna and abe for sure were the best and most methodical. then again rita's and joan's were pretty awesome too and we can only contribute that to the fact that they lived through the 60s.

anyway, once the tie dying was complete (and yes, we somehow didn't do it quite properly and all ended up with pink shirts. it's fine though . . . right??? at least everyone was good sports about their beautiful artwork being a tad bit pinkified.), we hung out and chatted for a while longer and finally went to sleep sometime between 1-2am.

no worries about the late night though, because william made sure we'd had plenty of sleep by waking up super cheerful (and by cheerful i mean crying) at 6:00am! awesome! so, peter, will, and i ventured upstairs so as to not wake the millions of people sleeping in kathy's basement. upon finding cousins sleeping upstairs on the couch, we decided to walk over to grandma's to hang out in her living room. upon finding more cousins sleeping on couches, we knew it was time for an early morning gunnison drive.

gunnison is awesome because __________. fill in the blank. there are so many reasons gunnison is awesome. one reason in particular is that it only has one small movie theatre that shows one movie at a time. and that one small movie theatre did something extra awesome last weekend. to celebrate the opening of the movie Cars 2, they had an incredible replica of Mater parked right out on the curb in front of the theatre. it was so legit it looked like it belonged in disneyland. so what else would we do at 6:00am? we went to see Mater! (and please excuse my morning face in the following picture. i was still a little sleepy.)

after hanging with Mater and seeing this awesome sign at the Body Barn next door to the theatre, it was only 6:20am.

so we drove out to the farm and saw how high the river's gotten (which is pretty high if you know how high it usually is. which i don't, but i believe it's much higher now because of this crazy winter we've had.) then it was 6:40. still a little early to go wake up all the rellies. so next awesome thing to do in gunnison: visit the town cemetery! yep. we checked it out. found some cool names for future children and let william run wild between the headstones.

finally we went back at 7am and found that a few of the youngest cousins were starting to wake up. so we hung out and i tried not to fall asleep sitting on the couch watching will play with his cousin simon.

after breakfast and everybody's get-ready-for-the-day routines, we began the games. they were a ton of fun. they were games in which all ages were able to participate. and all ages did participate! it was fun to see everyone out there, tossing eggs, doing 3-legged races, passing gummy peaches on straws, plowing over each other to reach beanbags, among other silly, but fun and competitive games. even grandma and grandpa frandsen hung out the whole time watching everyone compete for first place.

unfortunately, my team (Taiwan, in case you were wondering), lost. it's okay though. we did win "Best Sports" or something discouraging like that. we also had awards for best tie-dye shirts, which were all well-deserved.

now, let me talk about trucks. or "caaahs" as william calls them. kelley and kathy have an awesome sand box with dump trucks in their backyard for the kids to play in. right now william is obsessed with cars, trucks, trains, and anything else that has wheels. so, he spent the entire time we were in gunnison pushing around a dump truck. here are a few pictures, just so you can get a real feel for how much time he spent doing this. i also just wanted to include these pics because i think he's a cutie patootie :)

*notice will saying "caaah" in the first picture*

after the games and lunch, we held a shower for this guy and his fiancee, hillary. they're the cutest. they'll be wedding in manti in just a couple of weeks. we can't wait.

after dinner, a talent show (highlighted by cousin abraham's math jokes. they were seriously so funny), rootbeer floats, and more socializing we made the long journey back home to bountiful. it was an action-packed weekend filled with wonderful new memories!