Roger and Rhonda were married for 50 years this past August! They decided they wanted to have a family reunion to celebrate. The plan was originally for a place in Colorado but as it got closer Roger wanted to make a few changes to make it a closer travel location for Rhonda. We moved our plans to Branson Missouri at Table Rock Lake. It is the same place we met last year for a Terry get together and everyone had a great time so we voted to do it again.
We all headed up to the cabin we rented on Sunday afternoon and got settled. It was a nice place. Plenty of bedrooms, a little shy on bathrooms, but we made it work. Everyone was able to come which meant we had 26 people. The first task Roger and Rhonda wanted was a family picture. Lauren did a great job at organizing us and we managed to get some pretty nice pictures. Lauren also makes a collage of pictures of each of the grandkids every few years so she took individual pictures of them to update that for Roger and Rhonda.
Lauren trying to ‘herd cats’. She did great as you will see in the following pictures.
Here are the individual pictures of grandkids. For some reason I don’t have Kiara, Alex or Dalion’s individuals. They are in the family ones though. I believe I have them in youngest to oldest order but there could be a few mistakes in the middle. We start with Kaden, Chloe, (Kiara missing), Sadie, Tristan, Jovee, Alex(missing), Tyler, Emilee, Jesse, Allison, Leah, Dalion(missing), Ethan, Matthew, and Nadia.
Once pictures were done we ate dinner and played games the rest of the evening. Monday we headed to the marina and rented a few boats. We did a speed boat for the older kids to get pulled and bounced around more in the tube and a pontoon for a calmer experience on the tube. It also has a slide so it is fun to anchor and just swim and play in the water around the pontoon. There was lots of fun and everyone had a great time. The weather was perfect.
After lunch things got a little crazy. Ross decided to try skiing. He popped right up and did great. When he was done he let go and his ski flipped up and hit him in the forehead. We pulled him in the boat and could tell he was going to need a few stitches. We drove back to the dock and Roger met him at the boat ramp with the car to take him to urgent care. It took him a few hours but a few shots, some antibiotics, a gnarly headache and 12 stitches later he was back at the cabin. While he was gone the rest of us took a break from the boats for a bit and swam around the docks. Then people were ready to go back out. I went with the little kids and Kris on the pontoon. Ryan and the older kids went on the speed boat with Jake and Becky. About 20 minutes later Matthew fell off the tube and dislocated/broke his elbow. Jake had to jump in and help him back into the boat. Then Rachelle met them at the boat dock with her car and took Matthew and Ryan to the emergency room. Jake came and found me on the boat with Kris and told me what happened. That took the rest of the wind out of the boating sails for the day. We dropped everyone off. Ross had just gotten back from urgent care so we got the boats ready and took them back. Several of our cars were at the marina so I went with them to return the boats and then got my car and went to the hospital. They were pretty backed up and it took about four hours by the time Ryan got there initially and they got us back to a room and medicated, x-rayed and decided they could reset it and he could have surgery later up in Kansas City. It was a rough couple hours. By the time we got home it was pretty late and Matthew was ready for bed.
Tuesday everyone was planning on going to Silver Dollar City. Most people still went to Silver Dollar City (it is a fun amusement park). We tweaked the plans a bit. Emilee doesn’t love roller coasters so Ryan found a horse ride he was planning on doing with her. Roger and Rhonda wanted to stay home. I talked with the Doctors in KC about Matthew’s arm and they said to let him rest a day or two and bring him in on Thursday. So he found a comfy spot on the couch and grandpa kept him supplied with pain meds when he needed and he slept the day away. Ross decided to go on the horse ride instead of the roller coasters to give his head less jerking around and I joined them since it was just an hour or two. It was a pretty good day all things considered.
After everyone’s various activities we all ate dinner together and then had a family gathering to chat and celebrate Roger and Rhonda. Ross and Lauren had made a slide show with lots of pictures from their 50 years of marriage. Roger shared some home videos and everyone shared experiences or asked questions about them, like their first date, places they lived, things like that. It was a fun evening. Becky made a cake and Ross made a plaque for them. I think they had a great evening and enjoyed the family time.
Wednesday we headed back to KC, except for the Lee’s they headed back to Texas. The Bourne’s stayed another day or two and then they went back to Idaho. There was lots of cousin time. Along with grandma and grandpa’s anniversary we celebrated Chole and Allison’s birthday too.
