The demise of the family reunion picnic

The cutest little pie eater, Mathew, don't you just
want to eat those little cheeks up?













Above are some of the games we played on Saturday during the Family reunion picnic. The kids , Amber, Darin, Sarah, Mathew, and Amanda, had to pick up several round candies with a spoon in their mouth and no hands and deposit them into the foam cups. Then they had a whipped cream pie eating contest with a twist: .................................Inside the pie was a big bubble gum ball which they each had to chew after eating the pie and the first ones to blow a bubble won a toy. The front girl, my step granddaughter, Amanda, was the first to win. ( Of course, they all won eventually.) Another fun race, was to form a line with your teammates with a big balloon between each player held up between your belly and the player in front's back. With no hands, you have to walk together like a choo choo to the distant station designated, and then back to start popping your balloons when they get to the finish. (Let me tell you, it's harder than you think, balloons keep getting away, and they have to halt the engine to retrieve the balloons before they can proceed again) It was hilarious to watch!

The kids had a great time in the contests, but we were terribly dissapointed with the turnout all together. We have more than a 120 relatives in this family including the sisters, nieces, nephews, their spouses, and all their kids. (My hubby has 6 sisters) We have been organizing the reunion date and place for over 20 years, and started providing small prizes for the kids to win in the games. Every family knows we have this picnic the second Saturday in July, and generaly most of them came every year for a long time. Lately though, the numbers have dropped off, and this year we had the worst attendance ever. We had only 20 people, and only 7 kids, 5 of them were my grandkids and one step-granddaughter. Well, at least they had the benefit of winning more of the toys to go home with. ( Surprizingly, we even had some left over to go home with)

My hubby and I have decided that this will probably be our last family picnic with the gang. We will probably just make a date with our own kids and grands to make a picnic together. It seems that the big family get togethers are a thing of the past. And that's sad. One day a year we got to see a major portion of the family and catch up on each other's lives and get to know their children. Some of the kids have not come around for so long, that we probably wouldn't recognize them if we saw them on the street. Most families are just doing their own thing, and aren't interested in Aunties and Uncles and Cousins like in the old days. I was the one who drew up the family tree with each sister, their kids and grand kids and great grands in some cases. I was the one who kept it updated for new births each year. It was a pretty full tree! I came from a very small family, and I enjoyed getting his family together each year. I will really miss it!