The Reunion

Day 7

Sunday

August 17th

So we've reached the climax of the trip - The 100th Anniversary Reunion.

We went to church in the morning dressed like this and I am most positive that members of that ward remained with unanswered questions because of our abrupt departure after Sacrament meeting. They either thought 1) we are Irish cloggers, 2) have no fashion sense, or 3) are just plain dorky. # 2 and #3 are true.

The day began with some cousin flirting.

It ended up she just wanted to pet his fuzzy noggin. How can you resist?

The kids played games. The older ones did a 3-legged race, potato sack, and wheelbarrow race. That's Emily with her cousin.

The younger ones dropped clothespins into a jar. Bradley was pretty disappointed he didn't qualify as an older kid yet. I told him he could join the 6-8 year olds, but David successfully convinced him that he is better off being the oldest kid in the group because he'll win all the games.

They had a scavenger hunt.

They raced with wet cotton balls on plastic spoons.

However, David's convincing was short-lived because Bradley was disappointed that he didn't get a water gun like Emily's. Occassionally parents have some backfires.

The paparazzi took pictures of the kids.

Rachel hung out as usual.

We took a group family photo.

Let me explain a little bit. This is a reunion of the line of my maternal grandmother's great-grandfather. He immigrated from Germany in 1872. He had 8 children. This is where the color coding comes in. Each of the 8 original children are represented by a color. Our ancestor, John, is represented by green. John had 18 total children, 4 from his first wife. He married his second wife, who is my ancestor, shortly after his first wife died in childbirth along with the baby. He got lucky with his new wife and she was evidently fertile and produced him 14 children. Of his total 18 children, 15 lived into adulthood and 14 produced offspring. Needless to say, there are a lot of descendents. When it was time to take the John family picture, the photographer commented, "We know what John was doing at night." Of course the sea of green laughed and we took our panoramic picture. The reuion was for all 8 lines. There were about 800 in attendance. 3 hundred and something are from the John line. Go Green! Procreation rocks!

Another family photo.

Meine Mama ließ mich diese lederhosen tragen.
(My mom made me wear these lederhosen.)

Ich muss zugeben, dass ich süß ziemlich verdammt bin!
(I'll have to admit, I'm pretty darn cute!)

The band played polkas.

The girls improvised a maypole.

The family history boards. That's only about a third of them. There was also a bunch of other family history stuff on display such as old photos and such. I guess I will also mention here that there was a raffle for a bunch of theme baskets that people donated. I won one! I was very excited because I don't win much. But I won a hand crocheted baby blanket. I'll have to take a picture of it. That was very exciting!

"All this cuteness makes me thristy."

That was our day!
Auf wiedersehen!