Family Fun

If it's a Daves Family Reunion, the following is very likely to happen:

1.  Cards will be played, most often Cut-Throat Rummy.  We tried to invent "Nice Rummy" this year, but none of us are that nice when it comes to cards.  We get that from Grandmother, no doubt.

2.  Delicious food will be eaten.  Dishes will be done, and some of us will always marvel at how we all eat every meal, but only a select few feel the need to pitch in and help with anything at all. 

3.  Grandparents will brag about their grandkids.  They are all cute, brilliant, and angelic in the eyes of their grandparents.

4.  Stories will be told, like when Uncle Gary was the "unnamed egg farmer" in the "City Hall Hoax" story that made national news, or when Nathan bit Saralyn's nose and would not let go, or how Ken only ate white bread and butter for years and still grew to be 6'6" tall which gives a cousin a way to assure countless worried parents that picky eaters can somehow grow to maturity.

5.  Heights will be compared.  There is pride when a child or grandchild is showing signs of the family "tall gene" and there are jokes made about the less-fortunate members of the clan.

6.  Cousins will play, even if it means a certain 7-year-old commands the attention of her college-age cousins for hours a day. 

7.  Conversations will be held that discuss politics, child-rearing, the good-ole-days, what Uncle Richard has done that makes us all laugh, dreams of the young, experiences of the experienced, and we will see, once again, what we all have in common that living continents away from each other cannot take away.  Do all families want to change the world?  That is a common thread of many cousins in my generation and younger.  Who planted that seed in all of us?  Will there come a reunion when we've all "grow-up" and have lost our ideals, or will we do big things in life and have great stories to tell as the years go by?

8.  Grandmother is missed, and Granddad, too.  Grandmother would be cooking up a storm, right in the middle of every single card game, and sharing her own brand of ornery-ness with the rest of us.  Granddad would be sitting in a chair, sometimes telling stories about Uncle Doyle's delivery costing them twelve dollars (which he's not sure was ever really worth it) or puting his career on the line for all the right reasons when he was an educator, but mostly sitting there "just so proud" of all of us around him.

Uncle Richard, Brishen, Lori, Aunt Georgia, Henry, Jesse, Sarah, Logan

Melani, Kaia, Aunt Georgia, Henry

Shira, Stacy

Uncle Daryl, Aunt Shirley

Basia, Angie, Lydia, Thea (Devora), Zoe

Jonathan, Uncle Doyle, Mom

Zoe, Lydia

Thea (Devora), Angie, Nathan