Iowa - The Family Reunion

We were BLESSED to have a sunny day in the afternoon because it was raining in the morning! I can't tell you how many trips we made down to the Community Center that day to finish up things but it was a WHOLE LOT!! We kept pushing the air conditioning lower and lower as the humidity was pretty high but of course in the end, it didn't make any difference anyway!!

Besides all the running around for the party that night, we had the family reunion to get ready for! I'm not sure of the final count but it was somewhere around 48 people I believe to feed that afternoon - Patty outdid herself planning it all and getting the food ready!

How fun it was to start seeing people arriving!! Most of us just congregated outside on the cement with a lot of the kids playing on the swing set! Jessi, Gary and family along with Brad, Jaime and family had just driven in that day from Colorado - cousin Gailen and Belinda had driven in from Missouri - aunt and uncle Don and Nadine came from Charter Oak - cousin Brent and Eugenie with family had recently arrived from Africa - brother Jim and Brenda who are local arrived with Jeremy and Jordan - and their other son Josh and Carrie with son Brandt came too and they had just moved back into the area - Patty's daughters Amy, Jason and family were here from Strawberry Point, Iowa - Kristie, Shawn and family were here from Webster City, Iowa - Cheri, Patrick and family were up from Omaha, Neb. - and of course sister Teri and her daughter Emily from Michigan - and Jill, Robby and Aleah who had flown in with us from Colorado!!

Most of us were dressed in our colorful "beach" attire for the party later on and I love this picture below of Kristie holding Aleah and Emily - makes you just want to head to the beach!!

BEFORE we ate, we decided to take the pics - Patty and Leonard had the perfect outside deck steps for the pics although the sun wasn't exactly where we wanted it to be!! Let me tell you, it was pretty tough to get these pics taken but we did the best we could!! Below is a picture of the "Gran Cousins".

Next up was the cousins kids - the next generation down!! We had already snapped a couple of these before we realized that Brent's 2 young children needed to be in the picture!! Because Brent and Eugenie had their children when they were older, we had forgotten they actually needed to be in THIS photo!!

Now this photo took a LOT of patience and a lot of "Look here kids" "Smile" "Stay there" "Look this way" - we all snapped and snapped as fast as we could!! Aren't they just the cutest bunch you've ever seen????

And the whole group!! WOW - we were just all so excited to be able to take this photo of this many people!! It's just not often that THIS MANY of us can gather together in ONE spot!!

The reunion was a HUGE success!! We all had a fantastic meal and visited with ones we hadn't seen in a while!! A HUGE THANK YOU goes out to Patty and Leonard for hosting this event, and to everyone else who helped out!! Let's not wait years and years to do this again!