As usual, it seems my normal of late... I apologize for at least not checking in or saying when I'd be back. Sorry. Onward!
I weathered the storm of unpreparedness for visitors, of any sort, much less a houseful of family for a reunion. Our Grandson has recently moved into a large home in Kennewick and he and his sweet wife wanted to host our reunion at their place!! It worked out fantastic!
Family was here, in and out for a few days or a couple of weeks, coming and going over a lengthy time and then we all spent 2 days at Kip and Kim's. We went up during the afternoon and into the evening. Perfect distance and Hubby was up for the ride so all fears were alleviated.
Quite a lot of health struggling issues here, as you know, and there were things that had been neglected. Fantastic children....cleaned gutters, replaced some gutters, trimmed tree in front that was hanging on roof, trimmed lilac tree in back, cleaned outside area by garage, cleaned out back around small outbuilding, pulled front weeds (lots of them!), all sorts of inside things like batteries in smoke alarms, fixing my pendulum chiming Grandmother clock!!, sanding/repairing/ painting porch floor, spraying wicker furniture, painting front door, hauled 2 pick-up loads of junk to dump!!! I know I'm missing some things but that gives you a little bit of their busy-ness! It was fantastic and gave us such a boost!! My hard working kiddos are the best!
I realized...we were in need of rescue and they saw it and acted on it. I so love and appreciate them. I felt like I could breathe again!
Plus our Granddaughter, Britta, scrubbed and sanitized a bathroom! She is as hard a worker as her Mother. She stepped up to plate and did it. Loving these granddaughters...Tori using power tools on the porch...Britta scrubbing grime in bathroom!
Anyhow...as you know we wanted to celebrate our wedding anniversary this year at our reunion. Technically it's not until next month but we'd had this desire for a long time. At that time Terry could travel to McCall but that fell through to go there BUT we still wanted to celebrate here.
Now maybe that sounds strange to not throw a big marvelous anniversary shindig to celebrate but we had family for our 50th at McCall and we wanted to celebrate our 60th the same way...with family. Except for children by marriage...all attendees had known us since their birth and that made it so fun!
Jeanee and Tori brought Alaskan salmon for our dinner. Fish they had caught! it was delish! Kim made a triple batch of cinnamon rolls, from Terry's recipe, for dessert instead of cake. Cassie at one point made a triple batch of sourdough pancakes from Poppa's recipe. We had a Sunday pot roast early on at Jeanee's insistence. I was still in not fully excited about this whole reunion idea mode but she sure knew what she was doing!! we'd had that dinner for umpteen years while kiddos were growing up! As we sat around the dinner table, enjoying that familiar meal with such great memories for us, and started visiting...something inside of me just sort of melted into trickle tears and I at that moment, embraced how unready I was on all levels, and just relaxed and went for it. Fantastic memory and we did not get a picture!!
Memories. What do people do when they don't go to effort to mend family fences...end estrangements...learn to love each other warts and all? How do they make memories? Making unpleasant ones are the consequence? I know that I'm so thankful for my group of extremely strong personalities and that includes those that came to our gang through marriage and survived the shock and can laugh with us and at us and have learned to love us as we are.
Our family always ends up loud talking and lots of laughing. I can't even tell you what was so funny in the pictures but you can see what is indelicately called gut laughing. We have bouts of that.
Oh, I do remember two little snippets that made us howl... 1- a son was deep sea diving and they were told to not try to quickly rise and if they got afraid to calm themselves and breathe. suddenly his wife took off upward and he went up and grabbed her and tried to stroke her and soothe her and calm her. she would have no part of it and was fighting him. it ended up being an Asian woman and not his wife! the telling of that we found hilarious. 2- a son was in Italy on a business trip and out to dinner with an important man and his wife. The lady had excused herself from the table and then he excused himself. He's in the bathroom, in process, and the wife, in the next stall!!, asked him some flight related question about his return to the USA! He was uncertain of appropriate dinner conversation when he returned to the table!.... we found these stories hilarious (I hope I got the facts straight!) and things that make us laugh always spark someone else with a similar story. All of those....oh, that reminds me of the time.
We also relive volumes of Alaskan stories and our pioneering way of life and fishing stories on fishing vessels and of regular feasts of fresh King Crab and Halibut and Salmon. Stories of our creek and the hauling water and walking the so called road and antics and Dad's fixing things and leaks and tree forts and the saw mill and adventures galore. It's wildly hilarious to us, voices get loud and it's all tremendously enjoyed by all of us. Sharing a past with ups and downs and yet we have all survived.
They are happy that we have stayed married and still love each other. And so are we!
4 of our 5 children attended. our youngest was involved in his son's theater performance and the show must go on! Our one and only son-in-law was here. We missed daughters-in-law and some grandchildren. Our oldest grandson and his wife and 2 great grandchildren were there- as we were at their home. For some of our older grandchildren there is education and jobs that make travel not possible. They were so missed!
The home was decorated with beautiful anniversary things and a new Alaskan flag! and wonderful food and when we sat down to eat, I lost it. Our son David had playing in the background Love at Home. I had tears and when more familiar songs came on, I was just overcome. You know that we are not all on the same page about religion and it was such a respectful, loving gesture. Greg finally said to change it as I was really turning on the waterworks.
The grandchildren did a pageant presentation and Ava, 8 years old, wrote a song and the music and had all of the others sing. It was about love. I'll copy it and share it later. This is already way to lengthy!
The children were spontaneously sharing appreciative loving feeling about memories that they had with us and Ava's 5 year old brother stood up and said...I don't have any memories but I love you so much. He also dictated a love letter to his Mother for us to have. All of grandchildren wrote wonderful letters to us
Our oldest son wrote a beautiful tribute to us but was so emotional that he had his son read it.
We laugh a lot and are moved to tears by tender things. Heartfelt things. I'm comfy with that.
I'm really wound up. To long for pictures this time. To long for other special times with Granddaughters.
My heart is full of thankfulness and gratitude. Family is at the top of my LoveList. My Friends are wedged right up next to that. Love my friends! That includes you readers!
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