My Family Reunion 2009

This past weekend (7-30 to 8-2-09) was my family reunion. The Monroes got together in Fishkill, NY to commemorate the 18 children of Hector and Maggie Monroe. My great grandmother was their daughter, Katie, who had 9 of her own children and lived in Red Springs, NC. This year, the NY Committee hosted and decided to have it in a place that had a lot of resources. There was basic shopping, outlet shopping, a water park, movie theaters, bowling and plenty of places to eat outside of the hotel. Friday night was the "BBQ", but since it rained...it was held inside. Saturday night was the banquet dinner, which included memorials for the 18 and other family members who have passed in the recent year or so. Sunday morning was our farewell breakfast...and of course the last day.

The onset of this reunion was tense to say the least. A lot of things threatened to go wrong. I guess that is the downfalls of any family...issues are certain to arise. One of the earlier snafu's was the backing out of my uncle and his family over a 15yr long rivalry with my other uncle's wife. *sigh* Sibling rivalry is REAL in the hood. LOL THEN...Friday, we almost didn't get the reunion tees because the printer thought we wanted them to be ready Friday FOR Saturday, so he was lax in finishing them all...my aunt-in-law, uncle and grandmother were hours late to the BBQ because they had to wait for the shirts and drive the hour and change back up to the mountains. Actually, that story starts further back, because when we ordered them, the printer of the shirts said that my design wasn't going to work on the tees. The tree was a picture of the African tree of life and I just added names and tinted it. As it was it would've been a 4 screen process, which would have been way out of our pricing range. I had to go to the print shop, sit down at that guy's computer and work it so that he could lift the tree off the picture. Anyway, that took place and eventually we got it popping.

All in all, we had a great weekend. The feeling of being around your clan can be refreshing and tiring at the same time. I probably slept all of 8hrs TOTAL for the entirety of this weekend, which made for a very sleep kween. lol. That constant on-the-go of being in vacation mode is cool...so, it was worth every lost wink of sleep. I saw babies and toddlers and tweens and teens and my own crew and my mom's crew and my grandma's crew...which is scary. Scary to know because that means one day soon (but not TOO soon) my grandmother's generation will be gone as well. That saddens me. Yet, it is the way the tide ebbs and flows. The children eventually ascend as more children beget descendants.

Here is a slide show of some of my favorite pictures from this past weekend. I love my family. Thank God for the Monroes :)