If you're reading this post and you happen to be in my family, then you get it. If you're not, please be prepared to think we're absolutely wacko for taking our Family Reunion so serious. Since our family came on the boat from Italy we have celebrated the tradition of food and family by joining for our annual gathering. Saturday, a smaller group of our family, has a "Corn Roast". We literally roast corn. In Ohio we take our corn VERY serious. 
Sunday is our Family Reunion day. It can be pretty intense and have a chairperson, treasurer, secretary, etc. We also elect next year's committee leaders and last year volunteered to organize our kids games. Here's our challenge: No prediction of number of kids, age ranges from 1-18, and to boot we're Italian so chances are you only have the attention of about 5% of your audience.
Step 1: Organize
To reduce confusion I placed the following on each table and asked for parent volunteers for each team. I decided the best way to do this was to create games that would appeal to all age groups and sort the kids in order of tallest to shortest. I then assigned each a number (team) so that age ranges were evenly distributed in each team.
Marshmallow Race
Doughnut Eating Contest
Sack Race
Water Relay
Balloon Toss
Giant Angry Birds - I can't take credit for this one. I found on a very lovely blog. Click here
For all kids under 3 years old they had the following to do:
Cloud Sand with toys- 8 cups flour to 1 cup baby oil. Stir. Add toys. Genius.
Bubble Bin- literally pour bubble fluid in a shallow storage container, throw in a few dollar store wands, and you're good to go.
Step 2: Prepare
- Make a list of all items needed and head directly to The Dollar Store. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200.
- I made a "Team Bag" in a gallon sized Ziploc containing all of the items needed for each of the games. This helped reduce confusion and will definitely be doing again next year.
- Since I live two hours away from where the reunion was held, I won't be doing Angry Birds next year. At 10:30 pm the night before this was me at Walmart sourcing boxes:
<-------Don't be that guy
Step 3: Execute
Here are some rules for wrangling 20 kids:
1. Speak loudly.
2. Use as few words as possible.
3. Disqualify anyone not following the rules. That's like a life lesson right? I'm practically Buddha.
4. Give prizes to all kids for playing but recognize actual WINNERS. THERE ARE NO AWARDS IN LIFE FOR PARTICIPATION. If you lost, get better next year.
Hilarity ensues....
<---1-3 Year old 
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