We are family

We've been looking forward to this family reunion in Missouri since last year when we realized it existed.  Yes, I said existed.  Up until about 11 months ago I was under the assumption that we were a very small family, that didn't have much in the way of relatives (cousins, aunts, uncles, etc...) well I was way WRONG.  A couple of the "cousins", let's just call them that because frankly I'm not sure how most of these people are related to me, went to California and spent a few days with my Uncle and Aunt in Long Beach (yes, I knew they existed but not much beyond them), where they also met my parents.  My mom gave me some e-mail address and I started corresponding with these cousins the minute I found them, and they hooked me up with all the details needed to attend this family reunion, as well as a link to their family website and a whole slew of old pictures.  Come to find out they have this reunion every year, it is for my Grandmother's family on my dad's side, confused yet?  She died when my dad was 5 years old and they lived in California a long way away from family, and my Grandpa being very stubborn and a single parent did not keep in touch very well. (they didn't have Facebook so can you blame him?)

So, off we went to Missouri with kiddos in tow and my parents too.  We spent 2 days in Jefferson City, or round about, seeing the family sites (there were lots of family sites).

Friday night after checking into our hotel we were invited to dinner at Jan's house.  She was having all of us out-of-town folk over for a potluck dinner, I was worried that she didn't realize that I had 4 children, but she did and was thrilled for us all to come and eat.  Until the moment I arrived at her home I assumed (there I go ass-u-me-ing again) that my Grandmother only had one sister, my Aunt Pauline...well WRONG again, apparently she had 5 sisters and 2 brothers!  Wowza, that's a lot of cousins!  I also was under the impression that I inherited my schnoz from my Grandpa, well apparently my Grandma had a unique one too and I was double whamy'd!  There were so many people who resembled me it was scary.

Saturday morning we were up at the butt-crack-of-dawn to have breakfast at Aunt Elsie's house.  All I can say is I wanted to rummage through her things and scavenge all her antiques.  She had so many beautiful things I was very jealous of her children who get to inherit all that great stuff.  Among her wonderful treasures was an antique treadle sewing machine that still worked and my Great Aunt had only given $5 for it when it was newer!  $5...SwOoN!  After leaving Elsie's treasure box, we drove for what seemed like hours on dirt roads looking at old homestead's.  We saw the original farm that my Great Great Grandparents farmed, old churches, cemeteries, school houses, and my favorite, the farm that my Grandma and Grandpa owned when they first got married.  The old house was gone but the original 160 acres was still being farmed by an adorable Mennonite family.  I'm sure they don't think they are adorable, but trust me they were.  They were sweet enough to stop their plowing to tell us all they knew about the area.  My Uncle Jim was particularly interested since he was born on that property.  My Aunt Laura assured us he was born in the house and not in the field, like he thought!

This is a church where one of my Great Aunts graduated from High School.

This is some tin trim on the outside of an old building.  I wanted to peel some off so bad.  I figured if the building was abandoned then it should be fair game, Chris didn't like that idea!

This is my Great Aunt Lois, from what I can tell she is the only one left of the original 8 siblings, she is 95.  We figure my dad will live F-O-R-E-V-E-R due to his good genes.

I didn't get any pictures of the properties, it just seemed funny to take pictures of strangers homes (none of them were original).

Saturday afternoon we had lunch with Aunt Lois, and looked through tons of old photo albums.  After lunch we went and visited another cemetery, it was pouring down rain and no one would get out except my Mom...it was hilarious and I did get a picture of that.

Saturday evening was spent with Irma and her hubby.  The food was TO-DIE-FOR and there was tons of it. It was a great chance for my dad and all of his siblings to get together and chat for the first time in about 7 years.  

Sunday was the actual reunion.  Before that we went to the Capitol Building to see my Great Grandfather's picture, he was a state representative.  The building itself was beautiful and had tons of things to see.

The reunion itself was at a park in Jefferson City.  There were about 77 people there, still even after spending 2 days with all of these people I was confused about who was who!  Again there was TONS of food, some of the cousins had been fishing so they fried up some fish, had lots of side dishes and desserts galore.  Below is a picture of my dad with his brothers and sister.  They don't see each other very often but they always seem to have a good time when they are together.

Chris and I had to leave on Sunday afternoon and head home, C had a Dr's appt that he had to be at today.  So on the way home we were trying to out run a storm, we stopped at a Dari Queen to eat dinner and it hit full force.  It was pouring rain and the power even went out, luckily they had already given us our food!

It was a wonderful weekend full of great stories and family.  I'm always very interested in learning all I can about my Grandmother since I've never met her and my dad doesn't remember that much either.  I hope that we can make this reunion a regular kind of thing and get to know all of these new-to-me family members.