Remember When... Begin Again

I'm back from vacation.  Or whatever you call it.  I've never taken the kind of vacation where you sit back, relax, and bask in the sunshine.  I always joke about needing a vacation after the vacation... which would pretty much be me, sitting on the couch in solitude, eating purposelessly, with a blank stare (occasional blinking is okay).  That would be nice today, but, of course, there is way too much to do.  No couch sitting and thoughtless staring for me.  Mauri's back in school (collecting her week+ of make-up work), and semi-ready for her piano lesson later today.  Shilo's at freshman orientation, and Lex... oh yeah... still sleeping.  Preparing mentally for the beginning of new school year as a junior tomorrow.  And me?  Tons of laundry, paying bills, grocery shopping (nobody seems to want to drink the milk that expired sometime in the middle of last week), responding to the 17 messages left on our phone, writing Taylor, and blog updating.  No time for a vacation.  I guess blogging could be considered my mini vacation.  A few minutes to reflect on and enjoy all the things I expended so much energy for this past week.

We attended our Call Family Reunion last weekend in Wyoming.  For as far back as I can remember, I looked forward to these family get-togethers, which were held every other year.  My mom came from a family of 14 children, so these reunions were a big deal.  Lots of cousins.  They were always held in Afton, at the farmhouse my mom grew up in.  Most families would pitch a tent on the lawn, and you usually had to wait in line to use one of the two indoor toilets.  If you wanted to take a quick shower or clean up a bit, you needed to get up around 5am for a 10 minute bathroom visit.  We've only attended 4 or 5 of these reunions since Bill and I were married, but even my children have many fond memories of them.

These days, I don't even know many of my relatives.  I was on the older end of all those cousins, so many of the ones that were babies (or not even around yet) when I was a teenager, have 3 or 4 kids of their own.  My mom estimated that there were about 350 in attendance.  Name tags were very helpful.

We stayed in a motel.  The same motel we have stayed in the past 3 times we've attended.  There is not a big selection in a nice, small town like Afton.

The exciting thing about this reunion was... a barn.  A barn that was built for the purpose of family use.  A barn with 4 bathrooms, 3 bedrooms, a huge kitchen and eating area (and another smaller kitchen area upstairs), a big gathering area, and lots of other open, useful space.  My parents have worked tirelessly (although they may say they were extremely tired on many occasions) on this project.
We just had to come see.
And although it wasn't as finished as they would have liked, it was as amazing as I had imagined.

They held a ribbon-cutting ceremony,

followed by a program, and fireworks.  It was a big deal.

Of course, there were the usual reunion activities...

tractor rides,

games,

crafts,

and food.

Mauri and Bill even got to brand a piece of wood with my Grandpa's brand.

How cool is that?

Every current family member had a brick that will be mortared around the flagpole. 

 It was fun to reunite with family... and to make new acquaintances.  Before we headed off to our next vacation destination, we took some pictures with my cute 94-year-old Grandma Call.

Her favorite pose was this one:

In the end, a fun time was had by all.  It was sweet last night when Mauri included in her prayer that she was thankful that she got to spend so much time with her relatives (pronounced re-late-ives) this week.  I'm thankful too.