Family Reunion: Day 6

We went back out to the Lake down the street, but this time with canoes!! I think we had 4 canoes, a few life jackets that semi-worked, and various oars. It was pretty fun.

Lorelei, Mark, Damon, and Barrett out on a canoe.

Mark, Ainsley, Tommy, and Barrett on a canoe. Barrett said Tommy whined the whole time, so their ride was cut short.

Barrett and I went out and I can't remember which child was with us...maybe we were alone? It was really fun to paddle around the lake...I was too whimpy to go too far. We all had turns swapping life jackets, riders, oars, kids, and canoes.

My mom brought her box of hats to the lake. The hats were left over from various Halloween costumes, girls camps, high school boys closets, and free birthday sombreros. The kids loved them.


We had lunch at the homestead and swam in the afternoon. We also practiced our musical numbers for the night's program. The program consisted of a devotional by Paul.

Kim lead us all in a dance party. I was watching some of the video I took of it, and boy are we good dancers!! (Notice the sign I made? I was proud of myself...I only had that much paper left and didn't even free-hand it before I started painting).

The little boys did 5 Litte Speckled Frogs and jumped off the fireplace. We didn't practice beforehand...so little frogs were losing patience and kept having to get placed back on the log after jumping in over and over again:)

All the boys played 2 songs on the harmonicas together. It didn't sound too bad considering only a handful of them really knew what they were doing. My grandpa always played the harmonica with all the boys at our reunions growing up, so it was a really fun memory:)
All the little girls sang with actions (singing group style) to a song from Annie. They did a really great job! It was adorable. Kim and Jenny organized that one.
All the women folk sang a 3-part song...it was soooo fun singing with such talented singers!
All the men sang 2 songs...there's something about men's choirs...they sounded great! I was trying to film some of it and I realized Tommy was doing somersaults on the couch behind them and almost knocked over a statue of Jesus.
What a talented family we have. I'm grateful for the love of music our parents instilled in us...and theirs instilled in them.

Of course we had dessert! Homemade chocolate sauce=heaven!


We put on a movie for the kids while the adults participated in a spiritual discussion about happiness. It was a really nice way to end the reunion. Matt's family took off that night and were given a good bye with sparklers! It was sad to see them go and realize we'd all be gone shortly too...