Summer Tradition....part 1

Those who've known my family for awhile and those blog friends who've been following for awhile will be familiar with my next series of posts!! My strongest memories from childhood are from those events that occurred with some regularity and 'traditional' aspects. Keeping that in mind, I've tried to maintain as many of these type activities for my girls to develop comforting memories of their childhood!

In an effort to 'catch-up' to real time I'll be throwing up a series of posts today...and maybe tomorrow...depends on how long I can hang on to the computer now that I have a soon-to-be teenager in my life!!!

The morning after my Dad's 85th birthday bash, we were back up nice and early. Dragging from fatigue and heat  but motivated by the big Family Picnic reunion that is held EVERY year on the Sunday AFTER Father's Day. For the first 30-40 years it was held ON Father's Day but as Father's Day took on more cultural baggage we decided to move it to the next Sunday. This means there is no excuse for not knowing when the picnic is going to be each year!

I had several genealogical posters made and ready! Cousins drove in that morning from as far away as Cincinnati while my brother wins the distance award as he flew in from Seattle! In this picture I'm getting Terri to dredge up all the memories she had of one of our cousins who was killed in the Vietnam War.

Cousins who hadn't come in YEARS were welcomed back with quite a change in the family tree project!! Our tree now takes up FIVE picnic tables!!!! Cousins is quite the generic term in our family. 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 2nd twice removed, 1st once removed....it doesn't really matter to us as we are all COUSINS!!!

I encourage the kids to color in their names as a way to make navigating the family tree fun!

We line the newest generations up for lots of pictures.....

while the oldest generations just sit and chat! Sadly, this year my Mom and her sister were the only ones left from their generation who were healthy enough to make it to the picnic.

This year it was a touch hot for a lot of organized games so we did a lot of what comes naturally....we talked!!! Obviously there was some eating going on too. Next year will be more of the same!