Well, I think these are the most photos I've ever posted at one time, but we did so much over the holidays in FL, that I felt compelled to feature many of them. Gabriel and I (and most of our family and friends) arrived at Uncle Sam's on Wednesday night and stayed til about Saturday. In those three and a half days, we packed in quite a lot of eating, playing sports, and playing games.
I'd say my favorite game, by far, is the "Amazing Race" game that Sam makes up for us each time. It involved clues we have to solve, items we have to find in the woods, and tasks we have to perform. I also get to play it with my favorite partner (Gabriel, of course!) We won once during last Thanksgiving's game and were hoping to defend our championship again this year, but it was not to be. We never came in last, but we were defeated by some of the more athletic male teams we were competing against.
I also really enjoy the family games that we play indoors, usually at night. Gabriel's family and friends are a group of competitive, intelligent people, so it's fun to try to beat them! :) We also get to spend time learning about each other's strengths and areas of expertise as we play. This year, Gabriel invented a trivia game for us. We played with 3 teams and had questions ranging from computer nerd topics to geographical/cultural topics. My team was winning til the wager round, but I still really enjoyed it.
Another very exciting piece of news came from this weekend. My sister-in-law, Janice (Gabriel's brother Casey's wife), is pregnant! She is about 2 months behind me, so I'm really excited that our kids will be almost the exact same age. Yay!
Well, I'll leave the rest of the weekend's events to pictures...there are many!
-Shirin
We woke up Thursday morning to rain pounding on the roof. The poor smokers had to endure the rain due to the no-smoking policy inside. Luckily, the rain stopped after a few hours and the outdoor games were not impeded much.
Janice and Ashley (Gabriel's cousin) cooking breakfast. There are many untraditional parts of this event, but one that remains very traditional is that the women do all the cooking. Luckily, there are more women than there used to be, since the boys have started getting married. We enjoy it anyway, and Mamaw still does a large part of all the food-making.
The breakfast at Sam's usually includes Mamaw's biscuits and gravy, and sausage, bacon, and eggs made by Nicole, Ashley, or Janice. This is Clayton's plate. I told him I'd never seen so many fattening layers on a biscuit before.
Clayton demonstrating his biscuit-eating abilities.
Every meal was a big meal since it was for at least 16 people! Yum, breakfast!
Since the women do all the cooking, the boys have been learning it's nice to help with the clean-up. Unfortunately, Nicole didn't like the job they did last time and told them this was their last chance to prove their ability to actually make the dishes clean.
Ashley supervised the gaggle of men trying to help out. Unfortunately, Nicole still deemed their work unsatisfactory so they are off the hook. It's hard not to wonder if they did a poor job on purpose, but they all seemed to try so hard, I doubt it. We'll have to find them another task so they can contribute in other ways.
Uncle Sam, working on his adventure game.
Team Moneymaker (Cruz and Casey--father and son duo)
Team Gunshow (Brendan on the right and his friend from forever David R.)--they won the first adventure game, those speedy little devils!!
Team Jenny (guess who named them?)
Team Cornbread (Gabriel's friend Clayton aka Cornbread and Brendan's friend Jeff)
We were Team Incubators (I wanted Team Fetus Belly, but Gabriel didn't go for it)
Team 36 (Ashley and her boyfriend Chris)
Team Smokes-A-Lot (Nicole, Sam's wife, and their friend Chad)
The whole group that competed in the "Amazing Race" game on the first day. You can see how outnumbered we women are! (Jenny is behind Clayton and Nicole isn't pictured, but that still only makes 4 girls out of a group of 14).
One of the tasks we had to perform was to climb a rope and get a little bag from a tree branch. I let Gabriel do that one.
Mamaw didn't compete in the games, but she came out to watch (shirt courtesy of Casey).
Sam had the coolest ending ever for the last game we played. We had already found a bag of supplies in a previous clue, and we had to use whatever was inside to start a fire to burn through this rope.
So, what supplies did we get to start the fire? A fork, a piece of flint, a drill bit, and some cotton balls. Guess what? A fork doesn't work (a drill bit does)! And, cotton balls are extremely flammable--it was very educational and a fun way to end the game.
Team 36 trying to get their fire started.
Yay! They did it. FYI: this task was carefully supervised by Sam, who had already done it to make sure we wouldn't start some raging forest fire that spread all over northern FL!
The task was so fun, we continued to try to start fires with our flints even after the game was over! Here are Jeff, Bren, and David R. trying to relight theirs without the cotton.
After the adventure game, it was immediately time to play flag football! I opted out and hung out with Rita and Mamaw inside instead. There's just something about women in a kitchen, chatting and cooking, that feels so "holiday-ish." I'm sure we all had fun doing our own things.
Gabriel working on his trivia game.
Trivia team 2: Team Human--they came in second
Trivia team 1: Team God's Chosen (Jenny not pictured)--they won! Jenny called Nicole a walking encyclopedia. I imagine Sam and Gene were very good as well.
Trivia team 3: Team Sicca Served (don't ask!)--we lost at the very end due to not remembering which Quittich teams played in the World Cup in one of the Harry Potter books. Several of us had read all the books, but I don't tend to remember sports teams in general, so we lost all our points! :(
The trivia game-master. He remained in good spirits despite all the bitching and nagging about hard questions the three teams gave him! We all eventually agreed he did a great job and tried to make it very fair to everyone (except me--he didn't want to seem improprietous).
Emily was too young to play, but she turned in a paper of nonsense words for each question and at the end Gabriel read one out loud in a German accent and made her laugh.
Boys, boys, boys...(please let me have a girl!)
My and Gabriel's bedroom (pardon the mess) inside an RV that Gene rented for the weekend. It was a great thing he did since poor Sam had his house packed full of guests as it was. Gene, Cruz, Gabriel, and I slept out there most of the time and it was quite comfy. We even cooked breakfast in there now and then, since it had a generator. It was a lot like the RV my Aunt Martha and Uncle Ken used to have.
Janice and I, making some deviled eggs for Thanksgiving.
The Thanksgiving meal was a group effort: Gene (Gabriel's dad who's 1/2 Italian) made rigatoni with home-made marinara sauce and garlic toast, Mamaw made dressing, lima beans, & mashed potatoes and a million pies, Janice made broccoli casserole, Rita made ham, someone made turkey (can't remember), I made a salad, and there was a lot more I can't remember.
We had three tables of people and still had a TON of food leftover.
Thanksgiving dinner.
Sitting between the Beal boys, eating Thanksgiving dinner.
Cornbread aka Clayton is always happy when food is involved (shirt courtesy of Casey).
Apparently there was some fake sword fighting going on at some point. I didn't know til I saw the pictures. (Chris and Gabriel battling it out in the sand pit).
The next day it was time for golf...Sam made a course on his land, and we play on it every year.
I was napping through the first half of the game, so for the second half I just watched the game and played with Gal.
Three brothers (ages in order of descending height).
David P, Gabriel, Brendan, David R., and Jeff
Clayton brought his power stilts, and they got Jenny to try them out. She didn't like them though.
Janice is still in her first trimester and took it easy during the softball game. Her first baby, Jordan, is very attached to her and sat on her lap the whole time.
David P. takes all these games very seriously.
Sam, the pitcher
Imagine going to live in China and suddenly being thrown into a family version of their national sport, that you'd never watched or played before. Well, I imagine however you'd feel about that is how Jenny felt playing softball for the first time. She was a good sport, though, and even got on base a couple of times.
Gabriel teaching her how to swing the bat. She hit it well her first try and ran to first base safely. Apparently, though, we'd all forgotten to tell her to drop the bat after hitting, so she brought it with her, but that's a mistake even the most patriotic American can make from time to time. It was funny.
Hanging out and congratulating ourselves after winning softball. I think my team was made up of: Gabriel, Casey, Jenny, Chris, Sam, David R, and who else? If I forgot anyone, I'm sorry. We killed the other team! Yay!
Yay--babies on the way!
The-day-after-Thanksgiving dinner. Rita made Indian split pea soup, Mamaw made BBQ with leftover turkey, and I helped her serve the Persian stew my mom sent with me as a gift.
Buffet-style eating is the way to go with 16 people and 3 tables.
Mamaw wearing her favorite basketball shirt and eating my mom's Persian stew (Ash-e-reshdeh). She really liked it and even had seconds!
Afterwards, half of the room played a game called "Zombies."
Scary zombie game.
The other half of the room played Trivial Pursuit.
~Fin~
