THE SUMMER OF REUNIONS 2012

Dear Family,

It has been such a busy summer that I am just getting around to write about it.  the summer was one big ongoing reunion all over the map.  Here is a shot of Oma and Opa and most of the grandchildren in the garden next to the Church Office  Building.

The thing I appreciate about the family is that all love to come together in small groups, medium and gigantic groups as pictured in the photo above.  It has been a wonderful joyous time and never seems to end although this is the first week since the end of June that we have not had a family or two in our home.  Large or small groups, it is just fun to hand out and be together...I guess the verb we use in the family instead of hanging out is "blarbing" which you will not find in any dictionary.

It was preceded by a years worth of planning with so many phone calls and Emails, I could not count them.  We turned the overall organization to Doug and he had a lot of in put from all the sisters.  The reunion was a smash event and it worked like clockwork.  All but a few teenagers who were working or away were present.

The first family to arrive was Al, Paul and their eight kids and it was like old times.  They had the downstairs suit and various others had the upstairs including Suz and her family.

We had three days of reunion time; there was an activity in the morning, different activities in the afternoons with one sit down dress up luncheon at the Lion House.

We started on Thursday morning as the entire gang assembled at Airborne. Kaley's brother Bentley (of TV Batchloret fame) allowed the family to use his Airbone facility.  He built these huge buildings with all kinds of jumping and climbing possibilities.  Here is the gang all lined up and when the photo was over, it was a free for all with jumping, climbing, dodge ball and was pone of the funnest events.  We had the facility for two hours and what a great way for the kids to let off steam.  Bentley was great to let us use his place and after all the teenyboppers lined up for a picture with this TV star.

In the afternoon, the guys got together for a Wirthlin family Feldschiessen. This was planned by Rick and Doug  Rick looked up on Googl;e maps for a desolate spot west of the Great Salt Lake where we could take a gang and do some shooting.

Here is Opa sighting in his new SCAR at 100 yards.  Roy set up a sniper school for the kids and by the end all were hitting targets at 100 and 200 yards.  All the sons and most of the son in laws were there and it was a blast

Here is Rob trying out the 20 gauge rifled slug gun. this was a great activity and all had a blast! 

We got home after dark and a great time was had by all.  Since this will be too long, I will have to describe subsequent events in a separate post.  Thanks to all for a successful reunion first day.

Love, Opa