Motley Olympics: Pajaro 2008

Happy Fourth of July everyone! We spent the long weekend at Pajaro Dunes for a Motley family reunion. It was so great to hang out with everyone in such a fun place! What great memories we made with all 20 of us! One of the brother-in-law's mentioned how wierd he thought it was that most the kids wouldn't even remember the trip! Very possible since I have few memories of early childhood. Ryan already has a stellar memory of his short little life and I hope that the millions of pictures I take will help brew those memories of this trip and many of our other favorite memories!

Here is Scott and Sean with a skim board. Scott had lots of fun playing and teaching Sean how it's done.
Ryan with a sand crab. After learning that these crabs don't pinch, he had a lot of fun with them. I LOVED digging for sand crabs when I was younger, but I do not recall ANY of them being this size! Neither does Scott. There were tons of these HUGE sand crabs! Sean fell in love with frisbee. He played with me and Scott, but the cutest was when he and his cousin, both just three years old played together. One would toss it, the other would just let it land then pick it up and throw it back (they did this same cooperative play last year with a ball and bat - they were 2 years old!). How adorable! Happy Fourth of July! Kyle had much more awake time this visit to the beach. He was a cute meatball in his swimsuit and rashguard, though this is the only picture I have of him in it, because he always had his sweatshirt over the top.This is Jake, the oldest of the grandsons carrying the torch down to the beach for our Motley Family Olympics Opening Ceremonies. Down on the beach, the torch was relayed between all the grandsons.The whole "crew."Just had to share this beautiful picture of my sister-in-law Lindsay and her papoose. It was pretty cold on the beach so she snuggled her sweet baby. She's such a cute mom and I love this picture!The main event was an organized Motley family Olympics. It turned out to be great fun. Everyone was organized into three teams, individual families split up. The day before the festivities each team decided on a country and we decorated our own shirts. The shirt decorating activity was really fun, everyone getting pretty creative. My kids love their new shirts and have requested to wear them everyday. The babies weren't on any team, they were cheerleaders and had all three flags on their shirts.Team Japan: Notice Sean's suspended action as he prepared to do his team Karate kick! Team GreeceTeam China (the kids chose the countries)Our events included: Bubble Blowing contest, team mormon bridge (card game), frisbee toss, long jump, home run derby, hula hoop, water balloon toss, golf, tug-o-war, and a survivor style relay race. Important note: if you plan a bubble blowing contest - 1 minute is not enough chewing time. Realistically you need more like 10-15 minutes to get a bubble like this:

GOOD JOB Nikki! Here is Scott in the golf event.
Ryan with his head band to be like Uncle Chris. He thought it made him pretty tough.

Ryan hopping in the first leg of the Relay race. Ryan then tagged Amy and I and together we rocked the three legged race! We had a great rhythm and we were fast, no kidding! I know our speed contributed to our team's win in the relay race.

Ryan's favorite event was tug-o-war. Sadly, I have no pictures of this because I was either in the pull or tending to Kyle...same with Scott. The rope that was brought was not so great, so we improvised and used the hose from the house we rented. Ummm...not a great plan. The hose busted apart in it's second pull. All participants flew to the sand. Ryan thought it was hilarious. Sean missed it all as he took a nap at the beach on a towel two days in a row! He missed a lot of the Olympic games that he was so excited about, luckily he doesn't really realize what he missed.

Sean's favorite part of the trip was the fireworks. Anyone outside of California might not be aware of the hundreds of fires in our state. Because of these fires, the town we were in outlawed all fireworks...and Governor Schwarzenegger recommended everyone avoid fireworks this year. I AM A HUGE FIREWORK FAN, so I was pretty bummed that our Fourth of July might pass without any fireworks! We went down to the beach, hoping to see a show in the far distance along the coast...which we did but it was far enough away it was not exciting. BUT, our awesome neighbors broke the law and had amazing fireworks! I'm talking fireworks that shot into the sky that were not bottle rockets. They had to have gone to Mexico to buy these fireworks...just a smaller version of all the huge kinds in real shows! In years past, Sean has been nervous about fireworks, but no more! He loved it. We have rewarded him with a small toy for going poop in the toilet and have already phased this plan out since he's officially trained. However, after seeing several of these fireworks launch into the night sky and sparkle, he decided that for his next poo, he wants Daddy to take him to the store and buy him these "rockets." He hasn't stopped asking for this every time since.

Back to Olympic talk...I'm sure that passersby and nearby beachgoers were either highly amused by our events or annoyed that we took up soo much of the beach. One adorable older couple on a walk stopped to watch the long jump competition. They loved us and commented that they wish they'd brought their chairs to stay and watch! Same couple came by again during the home run derby and stayed to chat and figure us out. I really wish I could have seen people around us when we started the tug-o-war with a garden hose and then it snapped. We must have been pretty funny to watch.

Final standings: China - Gold Greece - Silver Japan - Bronze

Me and Scott at our Bon Fire on the last night.My big boys on this huge crazy tree.

Good times. Good times. Thank you Motleys! Love you all!