two is twice the fun as one...even 40 years later!

The 2nd day of the Ed Tolman reunion was Saturday, July 7th. The main event that began the day's festivities was a luncheon provided by Josh's siblings. And we surprised Ed & Kathy by turning the meal into a surprise party to celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary! Gideon was the master planner for this event, and his wife Alyssa was the master decorator!

I made a picture board to display using some of their wedding pictures, and arranged and placed the photos in the shape of the number 40, too.

Tiffany made the main portion of the lunch, and Alyssa and I brought food as well. We ate sandwiches and salads, and it was a very refreshing meal! Gideon & Alyssa brought the coordinating paper products, Alyssa made cute tissue paper flowers to place on the tables, and Gideon bought some bright balloons to add to the outdoor area, too.

After lunch, we had another surprise for Ed and Kathy: a family talent show in the backyard. Gideon had also planned and organized it, and he was the MC.

We all enjoyed watching as members of Tiffany's family showed their musical abilities in playing the piano and singing, and we laughed at their humorous theatrical abilities in readers theater and puppet shows.

It was beautiful to hear Malachi sing, play the piano, and play the guitar. And it was sweet listening to Gideon and Alyssa sing a duet, and then Gideon and Malachi perform a duet.

For our family's portion of the talent show, I had the boys do creative writing assignments. I knew that none of them would want to sing, dance, or play a musical instrument in front of others, and I figured there would be lots of that with Josh's talented family, so I wanted to do something different that they would feel comfortable with. We discussed it and I gave them several options of topics that they could write about. They all chose the topic "How I think Grandpa and Grandma met". It was fun to listen to their variations!

Ammon wrote: "I think Grandpa and Grandma met by seeing each other at the fair. One day, Grandma was walking around looking at all of the beef cows. Meanwhile, Grandpa was brushing his cow's fur trying to get it all cleaned up for the sale when a beautiful young lady walked past. Then Grandpa stood up and said "How ya doin?" Grandma said "Good. I guess this is your steer?" "Yep, he sure is". "Cool. My name is Kathleen Parsons, but you can call me Kathy." "My name is Edward Tolman but you can call me Ed." "Do you want to go on a ride with me?" "Sure, right after I finish brushing Butthead's fur." And that's how it all began."

Jonah wrote: "How I think Grandpa met Grandma. One day at a baseball game, Grandpa was getting a hot dog and Grandma was going to get some juice. Then Grandpa saw Grandma and said "Where are you going?". Grandma said "To get some juice". "Can I get some?" "Sure" said Grandma and so they talked and talked, and got some juice. That's the story of how Grandma met Grandpa."

Micah wrote: "How I think Grandma and Grandpa met. One day, Grandpa was eating lunch at the park then Grandma came and said "hi". Then Grandpa said "Do you want to eat lunch with me?". "Yes" she said. Then they talked for a while and they went to Grandpa's house. And talked more and watched a movie and listened to music. And that's how they met."

And for my talent, I wrote my own lyrics to the tune of the song "Brady Bunch", using the same topic as the boys. Here's what I sang:
"Here's the story...of a lovely lady who came to Idaho so she could attend Rick's.
She was young and had fun...with her roommates, and she attracted some country hicks.
Here's the story...of a man named Edward, who was busy at Rick's college, too.
He was a cowboy...from a ranch in Salmon, in search of girls to woo.
Til the one day when the lady met this fellow, and they knew that it was love at first sight.
He realized he could not live without her, so he proposed to her one night.
They became a couple, and then a family,
and now 40 years later , they're still married happily."

When the talent show was over, Gideon brought out a beautifully decorated (and very scrumptious) carrot cake!

And Tiffany and Scott presented them with their surprise gift of years and years of home videos converted from video tape to DVD's--they were ecstatic at receiving such a thoughtful gift!

Edward then surprised us all with one final talent: a guitar solo of a song that he used to sing to Kathy at bedtime when they were newlyweds. It was very endearing and sentimental.

Then we sat around, ate cake and ice cream, chatted and laughed, just enjoying one another's company!

It was a wonderful and joyful day! Ed & Kathy loved and appreciated the surprise party in honor of their 40th wedding anniversary (which was the following week on July 13). All because 2 people fell in love...we are now a family of 22!

Let's get together, ya ya ya

The Ed Tolman Reunion was the weekend following July 4th on the family ranch. Josh's siblings all came to town on Thursday night. On Friday morning the 6th, the family watched the parade together and the boys and I threw out candy/tossed rubber bands to them as we passed by them on Main Street. After the parade, we took our kids and Tiffany took her kids back home to the ranch while Gideon and Alyssa, and Kathy and Malachi shopped the Sidewalk Sales in town that afternoon.

I created some candy guessing jars for the kids, and set them up on a table in Kathy's yard. Since my boys didn't get to receive candy along the parade sidelines (that was their biggest complaint about having to be in the parade), I thought it would be a fun way for them to receive a variety of  some.

They could write their names down by any jar of candy, and they had to write their guess of how many candies they thought was in that jar. There are 11 grandkids, and I made 13 jars so there were extra choices just in case somebody won a jar of candy that they didn't like. I changed up the rules this year. I made sure that every kid won one jar of candy, and when I announced the winners of each jar, I told them that they could only have 50% of their candy jar. I gave each child a plastic baggy with their name on it, and they emptied 50% of their jar into their bag. This way, everybody was still a winner, they could all have a sampling of whatever candy they wanted that was left in the jars, and for the people who won smaller jars vs. those who won larger jars, the size would no longer matter. The kids were all very pleased with the result!

There was lots of relaxed play in the yard that afternoon, like playing in the ditch, riding the giant stride, swinging, and taking naps!

On Friday evening, several of the Harris clan (our summer neighbors and cousins) joined us for dinner: Myrna & Jerry, and their daughters Josie & Jeralyn and their families came down on the barrel train. We had a delicious dinner of hot dogs roasted over the fire, and fresh veggies and fruits. Afterwards, there was a big game of Lightning on the expanded basketball court in the driveway.

It was exciting and fun to watch, and they played several rounds of it, so as time went on, there was a crowd of onlookers, too!!!

When it began to get dark, the Harris clan left and the older kids and younger adults played some night games. I'd purchased some glow-in-the-dark bracelets for all the kids, and it made it trickier for them to play Ghosts in the Graveyard!

When the sky was all black, it was time for the annual family fireworks festivities put on by Malachi! With assistance from lots of little helpers deciding the order, he had a great display. We said several "oohs, and ahhs" at the colorful ones, and screeched at some of the noisy ones. The kids ran around some of the fountains doing Indian war dances and hollering/chanting/singing. It was a fabulous show!

The sparklers were the day's final activity, and they ended the firework show as well. Gideon helped keep the flame going for all the kids to use multiple sparklers to create light-designs in the air.

It was the first day of two at our annual family reunion, and it was a good and full and fun one!

tractors and pumpkins and orange, oh my!

The Annual Salmon River Days Parade to kick off the July 4th celebration was on Friday, July 6th. Josh and I had decided a few months ago that we would enter a float in it this year, promoting our "Lil Munchkins Patch of Pumpkins". I thought and thought about how I'd like our entry to be, and discussed different options with Josh. We finally decided on using our little trailer, putting strawbales on it, placing 2 fence posts into the strawbales to hold our signs, and having the boys sit on the remaining part of the bales to throw out goodies to the parade crowd.

I went into town that morning with the truck pulling the trailer, and all the supplies in the back of the truck. I registered with the organizers, and found out we were #26, and where'd we have to park along a backstreet in town to be prepared to go in the right number during the parade. Then I drove over to my school to park and place everything where they needed to be on the trailer. I set out the bales where they would fit in the center of the trailer, pounded the posts into the bales, and hung up my signs between the poles. I cut a piece of butcher paper to place over one of the bales so that the boys' bottoms wouldn't get all scratchy, then I attached some wire pumpkins to hold the butcher paper in place on the edge of the strawbale.

I'd had an idea the day before the parade to have everyone wear orange hats, and I could reuse them again when the patch was open. I purchased enough hats for everyone on the float to wear (me, our 4 boys, and cousin Joel). Also, I'd worked on the 2-sided bottom sign for hours the previous day that gives details about the patch, and the top sign is the one we use to put by our road to advertise the patch in the fall.

Josh drove a tractor from his work, and met me at the school a little later to unhook the trailer from the truck and attach it to the tractor to pull it in the parade with.

Instead of candy for the boys to throw, I thought a fresh and new and fun idea would be to give out shaped rubber bands, instead. I found a great deal on Oriental Trading for food-shaped rubber band bracelets, so I bought 500 of them, and we distributed them evenly among the boys' buckets. We practiced flicking them all the day before, and everybody could do it except Kanyon. So the morning of the parade, we filled his bucket with 300 tootsie rolls to throw out instead.

After Josh arrived and hooked up the trailer, he drove us to our designated parking area along one of the backstreets in Salmon. And while we waited for the parade to begin, I finished decorating the trailer with orange and white crepe paper

Parked behind us was the special olympics entry, and they were wearing all bright orange clothing, too! I loved how Josh looked in his bright orange shirt and cowboy hat, so I whipped out the camera and took a picture. I didn't realize until after I took the picture, that the result was this funny combination (which I absolutely love, btw):

We were all so excited when we started moving along, inching closer to the turn to get us onto Main Street! We decided the placement of everybody on the trailer--we needed to distribute the weight evenly because the hitch was loose on the tractor, and it was a single-axel trailer. Ammon and Joel sat on opposite sides in the back, Jonah and Kanyon sat on opposite sides in the front, and Micah and I sat in the middle on opposite sides of the straw bales.

We had SO much fun in the parade! It was great to see so many people, and I felt like a celebrity because all of my little students would yell out "Mrs. Tolman! Mrs. Tolman"! There were a ton of people lining main street, and we completely ran out of rubber bands and tootsie rolls about 2/3 of the way down. The rubber bands were a huge hit! All the kids loved catching them as we flicked them out, and people who had multiple kids were yelling at us to flick out more because all of their kids wanted one! So next year, I will order twice as much!

It was a lot of work, but so worth it! I look forward to doing it all over again next year, and we will make improvements to be an even bigger and better parade entry!

4th of July

We celebrated the 4th of July evening with family at the Parde's home. Josh's cousins Brenda, Ronda, Kayla, Sindy, Trisa, Janoa, and their families were all there, and his parents and brother Malachi came too. We had such a great time!

Here's some of the family waiting on the patio for dinner to begin:

 

 cousin Brittany and I:

 Jonah and Micah eating dinner with cousin Emma:

Ammon making homemade ice cream with Dennis' hand crank machine:

Chatting the night away:

We had patriotic "red, white, and blue" homemade ice cream--strawberry, vanilla, and huckleberry. It was SOOOO delicious! I think we all had seconds of it! We scoooped it into plastic cups to eat it. I had all 3 layers of flavors in mine both times and enjoyed every spoon of it!

 I got in with some of the teens for a few rounds of games (see all our cups from eating ice cream). I brought Imaginiff and Qwirkle, and we had a fun time playing!

We stayed until dark to watch the fireworks in town from the balcony of Dennis & Janoa's back porch. Because we were 7 miles from town, and at a higher elevation, we were actually looking down on the fireworks. It wasn't as great of a show from so far away as I thought it would be. Next year, we'll go back to driving into town to watch the fireworks. We had an awesome evening, celebrating the 4th of July with fun family members!