..friendunion 2011..

earlier this year ben and jen proposed having a "friendunion" every year. the idea was that each summer a different couple would plan it at a different location. since it was the clark's idea, they were in charge of the inaugural friendunion and the destination they chose was jackson hole. it all started to come together beginning of july...here we are in september already (how did that happen, btw???) and friendunion 2011 has already come and gone.

we stayed at a condo about 5 miles away from teton village. it was kind of old fashioned but accomodated our group just fine (except for the clark's who had to sleep on an air mattress in the family room). when we got there on friday there was a horrible smell, so we called the maintenance guys to come check it out. they couldn't fix the problem, so they offered for us to move to a different condo, however the only other one available was quite a bit smaller and wouldn't work for our group of 12 adults, 4 babies and 1 toddler. so....jenny worked her magic and got us a 15% discount on the total cost of the condo! woo hoo, who doesn't love a discount! and besides, the nasty smell became less noticeable as the weekend went by. :)

the weekend was full of friends, food, laughter and fun! after arriving friday evening, everyone just settled in and hung out. i don't think we even played any games that night! saturday morning the guys went white water rafting down the snake river. they were gone for what seemed like forever, and by about 3:00 i started getting kinda nervous. they were okay, though...just having too much fun. ;) while the guys were rafting, the girls went into jackson to have lunch and do some shopping. i was a good girl and only bought a book for finn. i grew up going to jackson every summer, and one of my favorite parts every year was walking around and looking for something to buy for myself. this time i don't think i even looked for anything for myself, i was only interested in buying stuff for finn (funny how that happens, eh?)!

after the guys got back we ate some more (i swear we ate non-stop while we were there!), rested a bit and then went up to teton village to walk around and take pictures. it is so beautiful up there, i love teton village. later that night we had a delicious spaghettic and meatballs dinner, and after the babies went to bed we played wits & wagers and of course our favorite, the name game. the name game was probably the highlight of the trip for everyone! haha who can get the image of brooke acting out "austin powers" out of their head?! so freaking funny!! three rounds of the name game pretty much wore us all out, so it was off to bed after that!

the next day half of the group went rafting, while half stayed behind to tend to the little ones. :) lance and i went back to teton village and rode the tram up to the top of the mountain. it was kinda pricey, but so much fun and i am glad we did it. we were watching krew at the time, and everyone thought that krew and finn were twins. it was so funny! it is amazing how much more attention you get from people when you have two babies instead of one. everyone was stopping to talk and take a peek, it was really funny. the view from the top was so beautiful, it was neat to see jackson and the surrounding area from that point of view.

later that day the boys went golfing, and jen and i went back into town to do some more shopping. of course. haha i bought a couple more books and a stuffed animal for little finnjy. i have been collecing jellycat stuffed animals for him, and i really wanted a moose to add to his collection, since there are lots of moose in jackson. i searched and searched and couldn't find any jellycat's...until the very last store we went in to, and of course, they didn't have a moose. so i bought a cow instead (since we drove past a million on the way up) and later ordered a moose off amazon. haha but i did order it in jackson, so we'll pretend like it came from there. :) that night we had a delicious stake dinner and played the name game once again. i think in the years to come we will start recording the charades part, because it gets rather hilarious!

the next morning we ate breakfast, packed up cleaned up and headed back into town to take a group picture by the antlers in our matching "friendunion" shirts. after that everyone said goodbye and kinda went their own ways. we stayed with the walker's, ferrell's and clark's. we went horseback riding with the walker's while the clark's were nice enough to watch finn for us. after horseback riding we ate a delicious bbq lunch at bubba's and headed home.

it was so much fun to go on a weekend getaway with some of our favorite people! it is kind of amazing that it all worked out - that we found a weekend that worked for everyone. but at the same time, those are the kind of friends we have...people who will make it work, whether it is super convenient or not. we all have so much fun together, whether we are in jackson hole, bear lake, or at somebody's house. i hope this becomes a tradition that we hold onto for years to come. :)

the car ride up and back was pretty good with mr. finn. both there and back he did great for the first 3 or so hours, but the last hour and a half was kinda hard. i think he must have been sick of his carseat. he had so much fun hanging out with his friends, though, and i know he will love looking back on the countless pictures i insisted on taking.

i am already excited for friendunion 2012. we are in charge next year, so clark's, walker's, halverson's, mcconnel's, ferrell's and spencer's (who i hope will be able to come next year!)......get ready because it's gonna be a blast!!!!!!!