CT Mini 2014, August 22-24

awesome guys..wish I was there...pictures please!

john

They are probably too sore, sunburn, busy and hung-over to post pictures.
Dang....wish we were there with them

This forum is a family. Never more evident than at the annual Benjamin Clan gathering I just spent my second year attending. Skiing, boating, family fun, good food just awesome. Several highlights but I am sure others will get to that and Tim Morfoot's pictures will tell it all, specially the group shot. Looking forward to the next as I sit here!
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It was a great time as usual. Great to see old friends and meet new ones, and the Benjamins are a great family to spend time with. Dave and I had a blast! There were a lot of boats and Alan and Dana showed up with the Hurricane. It looks better in person than in the pictures! A big thanks to the whole Benjamin clan for being such great hosts. I've got a few pictures for now...

What extradionary hosts. Tough to put into words the effort of planning and execution for bringing all of this and those of us yahoos that began descending upon the Benjiman Family Compound on Thursday and continued to arrive on Sunday. What a great time with old and new friends.
Kristin and I have arrived safely back in NC without incident and as I recall there was not a bout of shame this year...
Thanks to all that attended or had a part in making this awesome event happen!

Cheers

Some random shots

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Oh, the Smith girls said, "looking Good Kristen"!! No air chair for you?

Smithfamily wrote: Oh, the Smith girls said, "looking Good Kristen"!! No air chair for you?

She rode the sky ski and wanted to move to something else - it is all about the continual progression of new challenges.

Weather threatened rain on Friday / Saturday but never materialized. Sunday was a chamber of commerce day with sunny Carolina Blue Skies

While there is proof that I got up and rode the sky ski (see above) there is also proof that it did not always end so well.....


Greg - Sky Ski

I have a bunch of short videos of our "cruise" in the BFN. I'm working on stringing them together. This one stands on it's own though, and I feel like the smiles on our faces pretty much sum up the whole weekend.

Youtube offered to stabilize the video, but I think it's far better in its natural state:

It shrunk down to get the full panorama but it's a cool shot. I can email the original if anyone wants:

northcoastidol wrote: ... maybe we can nail that 11 man barefoot next time we are all together again??? ...

I have video of the start of that attempt. I think this is the one. Pretty impressive:

What a weekend!
A great big THANK YOU to the Benjamin family and Tyler Lake community for the hospitality!

Saturday was overcast and cool but that didn't stop anyone from getting out and in the water. Sunday was sunny and gorgeous. Tons of skiing, barefoot, slalom, trick, wakeboard, surf, air chair, pyramid, doubles, triples, a 4 person family wakeboard run, an attempted 10 man barefoot step off run, little kids on combos, 2yo Colton on the ski trainer, swivel skiing and I'm sure there was more I didn't even see.

Greg- Thoroughly enjoyed the early morning barefoot skiing with you- thanks for the pulls!

Alan and Dana- Getting a ride in your Hurricane was a huge highlight of the weekend for me, Cheney, Lyra and Willow. thanks so much for bringing it and sharing with all of us. That boat is a work of art and you are one heck of a craftsman- very impressive!

Eric- Thanks for the help rebuilding my carb Sunday, Mike, Roger and Tim for your advice - It was fun scraping gaskets with you. we had a litle CCF carb rebuild workshop going on there on the dock. I'm sure Morfoot will try to tell you all that my boat was on the buoy of shame- but not to worry. Greg F was right- no one was on it....no one.

Watching Kristin swivel ski was a treat as well. Thanks Kristin for letting us try out your ski. Let's just say it is a lot harder than you make it look.

Mike- Surfing behind your boat Sunday made Cheney's summer. She had been looking forward to that all year.

My girls had a blast playing with their CCF buddies Sara and Abbie all weekend. The trampoline was a huge hit.

Lori, Tony and everyone who prepared or brought food- It was delicious as usual!

It's impossible to list all the memorable moments.
Already looking forward to the next time!

Here are a few photos to hold you over till Morfoot posts his collection:

As everyone above summed it up, it was a great time to be able to gather at one location with the common interests. I wanted to thank the Benjamin's family for hosting this reunion and all the CCF that where able to provide their expertise in this wonderful sport.

I do have one tip, in the State of NY, NH and CT, do not drive on any State Parkway's, especially Taconic with a F250 trailering a boat........

Some Skiing shots:

Uncle Todd:


Dave Hart:


Dave Hart and Brad: