It's a Family Reunion...

Today was a family reunion for my Dad's family. He is the oldest of seven children that my grandmother had. My Dad's biological father was killed in WWII, then my grandmother remarried and had 6 more kids.

Having seven children results in having several grandchildren. Here I am with some of my cousins. (Three were not at the reunion.)

Kind of scary that I'm one of the short ones since I've always been considered "tall."

Thirteen grandchildren who get married and have families of their own result in a large reunion. Today, we had 49 people and there were some people who did not come.

Families that are this large tend to have favorite, and not-so-favorite people in the family. I see some cousins regularly, and others next-to-never. I get along fairly well with all of my cousins. It's the Aunts and Uncles that are somewhat hard to take sometimes. That being said, everyone was fairly well-behaved today. The siblings shared stories of growing up on the farm. Not many sugary-sweet memories, but that's life I guess. We all still loved my grandparents, for all their quirky, stern ways.

My cousin Ryan, (he's the tall one in the red shirt next to me up there in the photo) who is 4 months older than me was there with his wife and their kids. He and I have always gotten along well. We don't see one another very often, but he always gives me a big hug when he sees me and before he leaves. I saw him at a bar when we were in our younger (ahem) days. He was there with a girl, but he wanted to dance so he kept getting me out on the dance floor. I made sure the girl knew I was his cousin, but she still got mad and left. Ryan and I found it funny. Obviously, she was not the love of his life! Speaking of his wife, she and I gave birth to our boys 2 days apart. July 29 (K) and July 31. Sarah says she will always know when at least one of Ryan's cousins kids were born because of that.

Anywho. Reunions. Bah. It's sort of nice to see people when nobody has died though. Pretty much all the cousins that are going to get married already are, so we won't be getting together for that reason. For some of my relatives, this was the first time they'd ever met K man. Of course, they think both my kids are adorable and more than one person commented about how much M looks like me. (Or like I did as a kid, more like.)

Who knows when we'll get together again.

........................................

Tonight M was telling me that her and K were going to have a baby when they grew up. I explained that we don't marry our brothers (at least not in Minnesota).

Well, Daddy isn't my brother.

Oh yeah! Who is your brother again?

Well, Uncle Jason is my brother.

Oh yeah, he married Kristi. I like Kristi. It's a good thing he found her.