Gardner Family Intervention 2010

This September the Gardner family met in Ashton Idaho for a family reunion aka "Intervention" to celebrate Jacque's 60th birthday. John and Jacque rented a huge home on a large piece of land in little Ashton Idaho. They did this so we could all easily travel there (with the exception of Jared and Shawna in California). Jacque also wanted to bring the whole family together, including kids rather than run off to an excluded island like we did for John's birthday. Some might argue that John just went cheep on Jacques birthday. We'll leave the speculations out of the post, however, as we are happy for their generosity regardless of location!

We were the first ones to the house and John had to find an unlocked door around back to let us in. The house is strait out of the 60s with no real upgrades or improvements. Honestly, it was a bit disappointing that so little money has been put into keeping the house updated. Old carpet, furniture and 15 year old "big screen" TV aside, the house was perfect for large group gatherings. The 3 car garage had been converted into a little indoor rec. room where the Gardner girls kept themselves entertained all week with tricycle basket ball and floor hockey. It's funny that the room was made for children but the kids were discouraged from playing in there. Oh well. (sigh)

We kept ourselves busy with fun activities such as tennis, horse shoes, rides in the canoe in the pond, playing on the swing set, ping pong and fort building in the basement bunk house. Eliza loved playing with all her cousins and the swing set most of all. Julia loved playing in the little indoor playhouse with slide.
On the first evening we all went out to eat at a little known hamburger joint that is locally famous for having the largest hamburgers in the world. I'm not sure if they really are the biggest, but I have a hard time believing that there are many people that can eat a whole burger. John and Jared shared one and they barely finished it!


The rest of the evenings we at at the lodge. Each night 2 people fixed a different dinner dish and 2 people fixed a dessert. We then voted on which dish and dessert we liked best. At the end of the week each family had cooked one meal and one dessert. It was a great way to try lots of fun dishes within the different themed nights! Paige accidentally grabbed the stale peanuts at home and thus ruined her pad thai meal. :( She would have won otherwise! She did, however win on her dessert - Mexican Chocolate Flan. It was delicious. Not only did it win for best dessert of the night, but best dessert of the week! She is a fantastic cook which we are lucky to have her in our home as a full-time cook.


Heath Johnson has two very big trucks that are jacked up with lift kits. John and Heath went out in the yellow Excursion aka the Bus and hit some off road trails near the lodge. Later they went out in the rock crawling Explorer and had a real fun time doing serious off roading!



The last night there we signed the guest book. All the previous guests had done a fancy page with all the activities they had done while in at the lodge. We got a good laugh at all the groups that had come before us. It is obvious that the owners were LDS as were most of the guests. Many funny activities were "writing letters to the missionaries," "firesides" etc. Although we may be LDS, our activities do not center around the church while on vacation - sorry. John suggested we create a page with ridiculous activities like rebuilt old car, hunted and skinned a bear, completed our genealogy back to Cain etc. OK, so these things were a little far fetched and a tad blasphemous, but they would have been funny. The activities that were eventually put down were honest, but the pages were created in a mocking manner with Gardner Intervention rather than Gardner Reunion. That was John's idea too!


All in all notwithstanding all the craziness that happened that week we had a good time and we're glad that Paige's family is willing to get together for reunions. We just wish John's family was that dedicated. With monthly get-togethers, it just diminishes the desire to get together for a family reunion. We really feel it is a lack of commitment and selfishness that prevents a Lyon reunion. Everyone is too concerned with their own family vacations and doesn't want to sacrifice so that we can all share a vacation/ reunion experience. We have tried on several occasions to rally the troops and put together a fun proposal but each time it is shot down by one or two families. So we're done trying. Here's to hoping! :)