Family Reunion

Every fourth of July from the time I was an infant right up until the summer before I got married, Mom's side of the family would gather - from far and wide - for the day down at East Grande Lake, and we would spend the entire afternoon at my Grampy's camp. It was an older camp; one of the first ever built on that particular part of the lake. Grampy built it himself when my mother was only a baby. And the memories from that little cabin and the family times there will stay forever with me.

Grampy was the patriarch of the family, and he wanted his family all together whenever possible. So, we would come from far and wide, cousins who only got together that one time every year, and we would swim, and play, and eat, and visit at that little cabin from noon time until it was time to head back into town for the fireworks.

When Grampy passed away, the camp stayed in the family for many more years, but the year that I got married, some family members decided to put it up for sale. While I will forever grieve the loss of that camp and all of the memories and moments that came with it that no amount of money could ever buy, the fact remains that the camp is sold and it is what it is.

And, if we're ever going to re-create those family reunions, then someone is going to have to put a little time and energy and effort into making it happen. All it takes is one person to say that enough time has gone by without all of us hanging out, and we're going to do something about it. Our cousins Joshua and Trina did just that. They said enough was enough, they sent out invites, they opened up their home and their backyard...

And we came.
And it was amazing.

And while it's impossible to replicate being at a family camp on a lake for an afternoon, there is much to be said for tenting out in a backyard and being together for an entire day and night and part of a following day. We have never spent that amount of time together - all of us in one setting. We ate, we played horseshoes, we threw around the football, the little cousins made slingshots and learned how to make fire with flint, we made cowboy coffee, and we just enjoyed each other's company.

(Homemade slingshots. They may or may not have been the most novel idea).

(The three little cousins made our bonfire for us. Pretty impressive).

When it got dark, we built a fire and pulled our thirty chairs close. We told stories, we reminisced, we laughed, we ate more, and we savored. It was Midnight before we crashed in our various locations for sleeping. The next morning we woke up to a huge pancake breakfast and all the clean up that followed.

And now we eagerly await the next gathering and the anticipation of where it will be and what it will look like. I feel like I know my cousins so much better now, the little nephews and neices are now best friends, and the family is closer.

This was good.
This was right.
We stopped. We slowed. We put in the effort to make it happen.
And it was wonderful.
And this needs to be done again!

*************************
1694. Cousins - running & playing.
1695. Family bonds strengthened.
1696. Labors of love in the cooking and the clean up.
1697. Beautiful day, starlit night.
1698. Memories remembered - new ones made.
1699. Multiple generations all together.
1700. Food & fellowship.
1701. Remembering what truly matters - FAMILY!