Family Reunion Fun

A couple of years ago, I somehow agreed (willingly, I might add) to co-chair a family reunion for five generations of the Crook family in 2009. 2009 came all too quickly and we found ourselves with a whole lot of work to do. Luckily I got to work with a few of my favorite people...

The Reunion Queens: Lisa, Grandma Cole, and Aunt Channa

My great-uncle Lynn shared an interesting story about his father who contracted the Spanish Flu during the epidemic... he was thought to be dead and put with a bunch of dead bodies, but an elderly saw a small movement, realized he was still alive, and worked to revive him. At the time, Lynn was the only child. Great-grandpa and his wife went on to have 11 more children.

Behind Lynn there is a list of words that were the answers to our family crossword puzzle... an activity that helped us get to know more about our heritage.

I loved this map... we used colored pins to show where people have served throughout the world, either in the military, as missionaries, or in civic positions. As a family we've been all over the world (except Africa and Antarctica... there's still time, right?).

Ryan ran the raffle which helped pay for the food and all the activities. His temple print was one of the most popular items.

We made coloring books using bits of information about the lives of our ancestors... I didn't get a picture of the books, but they turned out great.

I liked the visual image of the poster above listing the children of Oscar and Fay and all of their children. In all, there are 439 descendants from these two people.

My aunt Dianne ran Grandma Fay's Juice Stand... my great-grandma was well known for her home-bottled grape juice goodness. We thought a little cup of juice would be a good reminder of one of her many talents.

My cousin and his wife did the face painting... which was a big hit with the kids. We also had "Lucky Suckers" and because we had SO many prizes, every sucker was a lucky sucker.

My (second?) cousin Kari ran Grandpa Oscar's Baseball corner--the kids had to try to throw some soft baseballs onto the bases and they got bubble gum for a prize. My great-grandpa loved baseball!

We even had a baseball pinata that I filled way too full... when it finally got knocked down the whole thing dropped like the New Year's Eve ball on Times Square... straight down, without breaking or spilling any candy goodness. We are just lucky it didn't hit the child who was strong enough to knock it down! The kids didn't mind that Ryan had to lift it up and break it to spread the candy around.

We also had Uncle Jim's Fishing Pond. My cute nephew Evan has his pole in the water getting some fun treats.

All in all the reunion was a huge success! It was great to learn more about my heritage and contribute to an event that helped bring our family together.

That doesn't mean I'm ready to do it again anytime soon... or ever... but I'm glad we did it this time around.

**Been to any great family reunions lately?