The above event happened yesterday. It was a LONG time coming as I started this whole endeavor back in June. But, the day finally arrived and it was WONDERFUL! Below is a better copy of the above photo on the invitation. That is Everett and Thelma in back. My dad, Ivan, is standing next to his father John Alma (Alma) and Iris is the little girl between her dad and mom, Belinda (Linda). A fifth daughter, Lillian, died in 1920 from that horrible flu epidemic.
Much of the posterity of my grandparents still live in Arizona and yesterday's reunion was the first time we had gathered probably since grandma and grandpa's funerals in the sixties! Incredible.
We took group photos but my cousin Mona and her photographer son were in charge of that so I don't have the pictures to post,yet. Stay tuned. I did take some general photos as shown below. That is Uncle Ralph - age 94 - sharing his memories. And below that is Jerri, Amy and Cade and Colby.
We had a hot dog bar and everyone brought sides to share. We provided dessert and my sister Juli made sugar cookies and Steve made TONS of M&M chocolate chip cookies, brownies, and snickerdoodles Thursday and Friday night. And, we brought TONS of cookies back home with us!
There was a memory table with artifacts from grandma and grandpa. Juli brought two quilts made by grandma. Mona brought a memory book that included sound recordings of grandma and grandpa's voices which she shared. Living in Tucson, where Hollywood often filmed westerns, my grandparents had the change to be extras in some movies. In "The Westerner", they are clearly visible in one of the scenes and Juli brought her copy of the movie from which we showed the scene featuring our grandparents.
I met a first cousin - Pat - who is 87 years old - for the very first time. She was Everett's third child. Everett was bi-polar and, after fathering a whole bunch of kids, kind of went nuts and his wife divorced him and re-married, raising the kids with a step-father while Everett basically just had a horrible life dealing with the stigma of mental illness. He was rarely a presence for his children. And, so quite a bit of hard feelings developed - children for father, children for father's family. This reunion was step towards healing so many years later. I met children of Gwen, Pat's older sister who has already passed away, that I hadn't seen since I was a little girl and then only once, probably. It was just such a great day. And I know Grandma and Grandpa are happy.
The rest of the week? Well, aside from preparing for the reunion, we had Halloween. And, we spent the evening with most of the elders and sisters in the mission at the Phoenix Temple. So, we weren't there to pass out candy to little trick-or-treaters. But, I guess some large trick-or-treaters decided to play a trick on us and turn off our power at our breaker box which is located outside and in front of the fence and not locked! How dumb is that??? Still waiting on a lock to fix this problem.
I got to pet a teacup Yorkie on Thursday night. His name is Zeus. He is so sweet and he let me pet and hold him to my heart's content. I confess I needed this because I am still missing and mourning Sadie.
And, on Friday morning, we had a senior missionary zone conference. Here is our photo. Steve and I are on the far left. It was a pot-luck and I tried my hand at a gluten-free tres leches cake. It was delicious!
Steve and I unwound last night after a whole day of family reunion and we watched
"The Westerner". Not a bad flick for being made in the 40's.
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