Yama-Rama

It is that lovely time of year when families all over the country start reunioning. I swear every person I talk to is going or has just come from a family reunion of some kind. And, we being  no exception to this mass exodus to Bear Lake and Yellowstone, made the trek up to Big Cottonwood Canyon (so trying, a whole hour away for us...we got lucky!) for the biannual Kiyoshi Yamashita Family Reunion.

Now, I was very excited for this because the last family reunion I went to was before I was officially part of the family. Dave and I were like two weeks away from getting engaged, but since there was no public agreement (although I am pretty sure everyone knew we were getting married at that point), I didn't really feel qualified to be a part of things too much. Like the t-shirts. Oh, my the t-shirts. Dave had emailed me when I was in Europe like a month beforehand and said "hey, do you want a shirt for my family reunion" and I panicked and was like "what do you want me to do?", and he said "well, my mom and I were talking about it and thought that it might be awkward if you had one" which naturally I had to be like "oh yeah, I didn't want a stupid shirt anyway. FINE!" to (not really. I played it much cooler than that. I was like "oh yeah, totally awkward. I would much rather the only person in a twelve mile radius who is wearing something different"). Actually, upon clarification later, when we were, you know, actually talking and not emailing broken messages to each other in French laundromats, it came out that what his mom actually said was "Claire might feel weird if she has a shirt since she isn't officially in the family yet, so why don't you ask her what she wants?" which sounded much nicer and more realistic if you knew my MIL.

When it came time for family pictures later, I told Dave that under penalty of death he had to let me hide and not try to be like "oh, you should be in the picture? because then I would ruin it and feel dumb and stuff. So when they took this, I hid, in my normal weirdo way:

Luckily, Dave's cousin-in-law Mari took me aside and explained that she, too, once had to hide during family picture time, and it was uncomfortable. There is just no way around these things.

Dave's Dad did take this pic of us afterwards, though:

Dave was also wicked sick right then, can you tell? It was an interesting weekend.

Anywho, I was excited this time because I am officially in the family! And it is way more fun to be official because you get a SHIRT. I was so pumped. Sadly though, family photo time was not my shining moment:

My friend Melissa's first question upon seeing this picture was "wait, why are there so many white people?" (We're everywhere Melissa! You just can't keep us out of stuff!)

The reunion weekend was super fun and I really love Dave's family. It is fun having cousins that live close because mine all live far away and growing up I wish I had been able to see them more. We played a lot of games, lost a pool tourney, went on hikes, ate food (you should have seen the rice cooker display) tried to go running with my super in-shape cousin-in-law April, and played with kids.

Dave's family is hard core about playing games. I believe his parents were up past two a.m. playing in the pool tournament and then his dad would get up and golf at like 5. I seriously can't keep up with them. The last night I collapsed at like 11 and didn't stir until Dave came in happily at 1:30. I feel bad that I will never measure up to their skill or stamina. A light-hearted round of Scategories is about all I excel at.

You want some poorly composed and lit pictures? Why of course:

Check out that powdered-donut mugshot

This classic chin-singing act at the family talent show (to which we contributed nothing except a later and quite exclusive rendition of Flying Dave.)

CHECK OUT THESE JAMMIES.  He calls them "boney bones." They are kind of the funniest/coolest thing I have ever seen. With the exception of these.

These might be the cutest kids ever.

Matching t's! And a sloppy ponytail from me, surprise, surprise.

We ended the weekend with a testimony meeting on Sunday which was a really nice way to close and I think it was good for me to have the opportunity to learn a little more about some of the people in Dave's family that I haven't spent as much time with. His grandparents really have left an amazing legacy and I am grateful for the piece of it that I get to be married to :) Thanks Dave, for letting me officially be a part of your family now!