After a day at home, we had to leave once again, this time to our son’s house in the Lompoc area. This last part of our vacation was to last thru the week.
Upon the death of Dale’s parents, the siblings decided to meet every other year, for a weekend, at the site of the host sibling’s choice. We have met at the home of one, Lake Tahoe, Duluth and Rehoboth Beach. During this time, we've lost 1 sibling, 2 nieces, 1 nephew and a granddaughter.
Last year Dale and I decided that we did not have any ideas that would work and were not really wanting to get involved in the reunions. We decided that we were just over the whole thing and would go on our way.
Our oldest son has a ranch on the Central California coast. https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/1651581?checkin=08%2F25%2F2015&checkout=08%2F26%2F2015&s=JxFL
He and a 1st cousin Laurie, who is also his good friend, decided that they would have an expanded reunion to include all of their cousins as well as the “old geezers” as he referred to us siblings and spouses.
The 2 cousins and their spouses worked for months, planning food, sleeping arrangements and living arrangements. They built a wood fired hot tub, put in walkways, set up an area for tents, and built a bath house complete with bathtub.
For us, this reunion was actually a 2-part event. We had a gathering for our immediate family on Wed/Thurs and then the extended family over the weekend.
Our week started on Tues evening when we arrived at our son’s house to help with last minute help. We helped clean all morning Wed and took care of the “littles” so that Nate and Bekki could keep going. Our niece Laurie, the other organizer, arrived to help along with her husband.
By afternoon our middle boy Justin and 2 sons, plus wife and her daughter arrived. Christine is a great help and immediately pitched in to finish up the chores. Then our youngest son Clayton, wife and 2 kids arrived. We were all together except for our oldest granddaughter who couldn’t arrive until Fri.
Jen was very interested in the animals as she has started to collect chickens, ducks and dogs. She plans to add a goat or sheep and a pony. She has asked me questions before about chickens and goats for which I have no answers. She was able to ask her questions and finally get some good information.
It was fun to introduce Christine, Clayton and Jen to the winery next door where we are wine club members. Too bad they poured us so many wines, but we tasted everything poured and soldiered thru.
Kids played and ran amuck on the hills, swinging on the tree swings and carrying the new kitties. By the Alpenglow
we had a fire and roasted marshmallows.
We hadn’t been all together for a while so it was so nice for all of us to be together. Clayton and Jen left and we started preparing for the next batch of relatives.
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