Family

 

Two weekends ago we attended our 25+ annual family reunion (of my dad’s siblings and their descendants). The big change this year was that we (well, my parents and Shannon and Ben) hosted the reunion for the first time. It was a huge undertaking, but Shannon is a master event planner. The weekend went so smoothly, and the weather was beautiful.

Not everyone was able to attend, but that is to be expected. We did have all 7 siblings (including my dad) and spouses, 11 cousins (out of 21) and spouses, 15 second cousins (out of close to 40?), a couple significant others, and a baby (3rd cousin) all together.

The garden was a lovely spot for spending time together, eating and talking.

On Saturday we had our traditional asado (an Argentine BBQ), but this time Casey agreed to cook the meat on his Traeger grills rather than have Dad man an open fire pit. We had the BBQ going for sausages.

And of course we had to have tomato and onion salad. And dulce de leche on bread. YUM!!!

Volleyball is also a tradition.

The flags represent different countries in which various family members were born.

Salsa making—another tradition.

Potato guns. Another tradition.

Sunday morning we had a short family church service. Casey played his guitar.

The seven siblings.

With spouses.

Sunday happened to be Leif’s 7th birthday, so we tacked on an ice cream cake (we did the splash pool and out for ice cream with friends this past week also—I’ll post pictures of that next). The outside of the cake melted quickly and the frosting wouldn’t stay put (and Leif insisted on placing the candles himself…).