The Duck and Boat Races

One of the traditions of our Family Reunions is the "reunion shirt".  We passed them out on Friday night so that we could all wear them on Saturday.  Here is some of our "models" during breakfast.

Thad and Tana Giberson)

Duncan Giberson

Jena--she had a big smile almost all
of the time. Cousins are one of her most
favorite things.

After an excellent breakfast, we began our boat building event.  We randomly divided people into teams who all had their own color of sails. (Thanks to Cindy Anderson and the guy at her work who drinks so much Dr. Pepper every day for all of the bottles!)

Dad with the "Original Giberson"

Lynette

Kylie Ipson

The designs of this boat are based on a cub scout regatta.  For the cub scouts and other places we have done it since then we ran the boats in rain gutter sections filled with water. Makes sense, in some ways, Family reunion is like a pack meeting in cub scouts--a time to be silly and enjoy being together!

Kara Ipson Wilford with her daughter, Morgan

 Team Green with blue

Owen Neerings, Mike, Duncan, Megan Ipson, Jordan Hearns, Todd, Tillie, Anna

 

 

Yellow Team

Scott, Lynette, Thad, Lance Johnson, Lora, Kayley, Linda, Tana
in front: Paul with Allison, Randee with Sophee

                                       
 Pink team

Ryan Giberson, Dad, Valerie, Kyle Giberson, Lisa Neerings with Allison, Jena

 Team Orange

Rick, Tommy Willford with Parker, Ben, Kara with Morgan, Jordan and Sarah
In front: Paul Giberson with Max

 

The Very Green Team

Audrey, Landi Ipson Johnson, Scotty, Daniel Hearns, Lance Ipson, Kylie Ipson

Then we headed to the nearby stream to try out the boats.  Gary and I had checked out the stream the day before and while it was beautiful, it didn't have very much open space along the banks to watch the race and after the bridge there was a fishing pond where we were afraid many of the boats could get stuck in the middle plus disturb the fisherman.  We knew the ducks would work great but we decided to take the boats to and try them out.  So glad we did---playing in a creek on a hot day is just FUN!

Checking out the stream--

Grandchildren Duck Race---hard to see them but they are the little colorful things in the stream.

Megan, Gary, Scott G. and I think Lisa are catching the ducks with the nets

Look at beautiful the surroundings are.  Valerie watching from the bridge.  There were cabins up the mountain and we had a few cars stop on the bridge to watch the action as our boats and ducks traveled the stream.  I guess it isn't often that you see 48 people racing homemade boats in this stream.

 

 Here is our "owners" box with Lea, Karla and Dad---

We finally developed a system to launch boats and Megan and Landi handled that duty for awhile.  They had cold feet along with our catchers after playing in the water.

Jordan and Lisa collecting the boats from the catchers.

Gibersons are everywhere cheering for their teams........... and taking pictures

Mike found a quite spot on the side to watch---and keep boats
from getting caught on that side

Sometimes some of the boats were able to make the whole trip right side up with their sail high in the sky.....

Tillie

 My dad's youngest grand-child Tillie Giberson and his oldest great-grandchild Audrey Neerings...

They are 2 months apart in age.
Audrey is older.

Kayley Giberson

 Mike takes a net to help with the catching of the boats and ducks...

Thanks Family for being willing to play in the stream with me!

You are the best!

giberiginal 2015

aka The Giberson 2015 reunion.  "giberiginal" is the 'company name' which my mom would put on the handmade cards she would make us.  I thought she had come up with it but it was actually my brother, Todd, and Mom was the first to use it. (No surprise that my brother, Todd's son, Niles, is in advertising.)  We thought it was about time that we used it for our reunion and it was the perfect touch to all of the fun gathering, games playing, and conversations.

On Friday and Saturday we had a shelter complete with a little kitchen to use.  They had just gotten round tables and new folding chairs which made it perfect for eating and especially for game playing.



Gary thought we need a picture of this sign--
Good clarification with the added "+" "worms" and "candy worms" are
two different things especially in fishing country like this.

 

At the corner of the camping area was a tiny little food shack where we had lunch on Friday.

Gary, Jena, Ben and Tana (Giberson)

 Let the Giberson game playing begin........inside

 And outside..............

The grassy area was great for ladder ball, ultimate Frisbee,
and horse shoes--plus tag and the other outdoor games people like.



Allison Neerings--we teach them early in our family

 Friday night we had a first official organized activity:  Dinner and Minute-To-Win

 

Balloon Blowing to knock over the cups

Dad and Karla

 

Ben did great at this one....

Picking up cotton balls and putting them into a bowl

 

The trick is Vaseline on your nose

 

Definitely a trick one for Jena and her tiny nose,

but she worked hard.

 Audrey (above) and Duncan (below) are working

to bounce the ping pong balls out of a small box in

one minute.

 

 

Lora with Megan in the background
Stacking dices on a tongue depresser

Robin wrapping Tillie

 


The party had begun in earnest......................................

Day Two

Going from here (Pueblo State Park) to Sierra Bonita RV and Cabins in north-eastern New Mexico. It is located just south of Angel Fire, New Mexico which is a skiing area in the winter. My brother, Rick, had heard that some people had had a reunion in the area so I started a search for a good spot to gather.  We had decided to go to eastern New Mexico as it was somewhat the mid-point between AZ, Texas, and Utah.  I was looking for a spot with camping, cabins and RV spots, close to a hotel (for Dad and Karla) and maybe had a shelter where we could do family events.

According to the website, this spot met those requirements but as we were driving there I started to worry.  You never know quite how things might be from a website and pictures.

I didn't need to worry. It was rustic and on the older side, but it worked awesome and we had a great time.

Jena took some pictures as we were driving through the mountains in New Mexico and also

 got a picture of some bikers along the road.

As we turned south from Angel Fire, the road was narrow and then a sign informed us that there would be no center lane for several miles!  We were lucky and didn't pass any other large vehicles.  Gary didn't want to back up the curvy road.  It was a great drive and the RV managed the climbs great.

No center line, but notice the two colors of pavement!

Like I said--greens are awesome.

We got the highest spot in the RV section for our motor home.  We were the first of the family to arrive. 

 Views from our campsite looking over the scenery....

Ipsons arrived next followed by more Gibersons and the games began......how did they know that Gibersons love horseshoes!  That was a fun bonus for us.

Gibersons (in various shapes and sizes) arrived throughout the evening and into the next day.  In total, there were 48 of us.  Dad and Karla, all 8 siblings, four of the six in-laws, 20 grandchildren, five grandchildren's spouses, one soon to be spouse  and eight great grandchildren.  We missed those who couldn't attend but we had fun with the ones that could be there.

 

I could hardly wait for Friday's activities to begin.

Vacation 2015-Day One



We took over 700 pictures in just a few days on my phone, Gary's phone, our camera, and Ben's phone (don't be alarmed--I am not posting them all on the blog!).  But it does make it hard to know what to choose and what to write about.

 

The summary is that our 2015 Family Vacation (with Gary, Judy, Ben and Jena) and Giberson Family Reunion was great.  We had a fun time gathering with my family at the Sierra Bonita RV and Campground in New Mexico and we loved our side trips on the way there and the way home.

 

 

The details--Day One:

 

Although Gary places the blame squarely on me, I think both of us really enjoy traveling on roads we haven't been on before.  For me it is like lighting that piece of my internal world map each time I go somewhere I haven't been before (I even like taking new exits off freeways or going different ways to the same place.  I know.  It is a bit over the top.) As we planned our trip to north eastern New Mexico, we decided to travel east to Vernal and then travel state roads and scenic byways into Colorado and down to Rifle on Interstate 70.  We had decided to go that way because one of the bridges on my bucket list item (six famous bridges in the US) was in south eastern Colorado.  Then my brother posted that there was actually a Giberson Bay on Lake Dillon which firmed up our route.

 

It was a beautiful drive through eastern Utah and western Colorado and as always the Rockies are amazing!  Although we have been to Vail, Colorado, from Denver a couple of times, Gary isn't convinced that he has ever driven that whole road before.  I thought we had in our many trips between Texas and Utah but maybe not with him.

 

The interstate had a bike road beside it almost the entire length we traveled.  I might put riding on part of that trail as a bucket list item but I will have to get in shape before we tried something like that.  People were rafting along the river in lots of places as well.  It was a gorgeous day to be traveling in your motor home.

 



 

Here the west bound traffic is on the upper road
while east bound is on the ground.
Gary wants to travel that upper road sometime--maybe
when we come to bike ride

Turning south off I-70 at Frisco, Colorado and after a wrong turn, we found Giberson Bay.  Not much to look at and it was raining while we were there.  Ben and I jumped out for a couple of pictures for posterity.

 

Giberson is a fairly unusual last name
so it is fun to see it on a sign somewhere.

The Bay itself

We had just started traveling south again and I was just about falling asleep when Gary pulled off the road.  He said when he saw the sign, he knew I wouldn't want to miss this spot.  (He knows me so well!) Again Ben and I hopped out to enjoy the spot where the continent is divided.

The rain had just stopped and it was beautiful.  Ben took lots of pictures and I took this fun picture of him taking pictures.  I thought a lot on this trip how beautiful blue and green are together.  There are hundreds of types of greens and they seem to all worked together in nature and blue sky makes them pop.  Nice work---

 Finally in early evening we got to the area near the Royal Gorge Bridge.  We decided to turn in and look at it to determine how much time it would take to visit it in the morning.  When we got there, we were able to get discount tickets and still do the main things we wanted to do that evening which was perfect...

 We rode the miniature train............

 Checked out the gorge and rode the gondola across it to the other side....

Here comes our ride......

 Neither Jena or Ben love heights but they both were good sports and managed the gondola and the walk back on the bridge.

On the ride across...not her favorite thing

The Royal Gorge Bridge area had a major fire a year ago which burned down all of the buildings on the site and the amusement park activities.  However the bridge itself only was slightly damaged.  Here are some of the leftover trees which were burned but still manage to stand.

 Walking down to the bridge.....

This is what we came for (well, me anyway) to walk across this bridge.  When it was built in the early 20th century, it was the highest bridge in elevation in the world.  It now is still the highest in the US, I believe.

 A view looking over the edge to the river below.

 It is a wooden bridge and after 7:00 pm they allow cars and small trucks to drive across and back (not RVs).  That is when we were walking across and the bridge would shake.  Jena walked directly in the middle of the bridge except when the cars passed by. You can see the bridge through an opening between the wooden planks.

All of the states' flags are flown along the bridge and we got several pictures of the states which we loved.  Here is Ben by the AZ flag.

I think both Ben and Jena were pretty proud of themselves when they finished the walk.  It is pretty high in the air.

We then headed off to find a camping spot which proved to be more challenging than we thought.  We turned off the highway at an exit which had a state park sign but never found the state park and ended way north of where we wanted to be at Colorado Springs---oh well--another road traveled.

It was about 11 pm when we arrived at Lake Pueblo State Park (after another slightly long trip the wrong way) so we didn't have a good view of our surroundings until the morning.  We slept well after 15 hours of traveling and sightseeing.  It was a good day and a great start to our trip.

You can barely see the sail boat early Thursday morning on the lake.