Smith Family Reunion

The Smith Family Reunion started when I was a kid. Or perhaps before. 

This family likes to get together a lot, so perhaps they started meeting for holidays and then it morphed into a reunion that we try to have every 5 years. 

At any rate, I have many cherished memories from the Christmas, Thanksgiving, and reunion get-togethers that I've gone to. I took Jonathan to the last one I attended, which was 10 years ago. Phillip and I took Elizabeth to one in Nebraska when she was a baby. Phoebe has yet to go (she was welcome to come on this one, but she was not about that traveling in a truck for days on end). And Harrison has now been to a family reunion as of this past week.

My parents traveled from Jennings, Louisiana to pick us up. My dad has an awesome new truck, so we had no vehicle problems, no accidents, smooth sailing. 

Dad let me drive a few times. He didn't relish the thought of me driving in the mountain passes (steep and curvy), and we went through a lot of passes, so Dad did most of the driving.

Harrison is a forbearing traveler. He was tired out for sure, but he did not complain. He bought himself this rubber band gun which was great entertainment for him.

Aupa shared his binoculars so Harrison could spy out mountains and antelope and jackalope (ha!). 

We drove 2 1/2 days there and 2 1/2 days back with about 4 days of visiting time in Washington.

We ate breakfast at the hotels or snacked on things we had with us in the truck. Then we would eat a big lunch around 12 or 1. Supper was either snacking on stuff from the truck or just waiting for breakfast. I really liked this because if you eat too many meals on the road, you just feel gross! All that sitting and eating with no movement....

One thing I wanted to do was take Harrison to Riverfront Park in Spokane. I loved that place as a kid! I remember we did the Bloomsday race and rode the gondolas and walked the park and played and saw the  Lilac parade. I thought that place was amazing. 

So I talked Harrison into taking a gondola ride. 

I'm not sure he loved it (I was a little trepidatious myself), but he was brave.

Dad went with us, but Mom kept her feet firmly planted on the ground.

This is one of the views from the gondola. The Spokane river.

We rode the carousel for kicks.

Jonathan is good about texting and face-timing anytime I leave.

And then we arrived at the reunion at Aunt Jerie Lynn and Uncle Wade's home. We watched them build this home. We used to go out there to play in the snow because they got more of it out in the country than we did in the city. Harrison swung on that tree swing that I used to swing on. (It's back there, even if you can't see it.) 

Friday night was saying hello to everyone and eating homemade ice cream.

Grandma invited Harrison and I to stay in the rental home she found (like an airbnb). This was another fun thing ~ there was a lot of visiting at the reunion, but this smaller group provided some deeper conversation and time together. We like to play cards and Shanghai was the game of choice this weekend. I remember Hearts and Spades being the particular games we played when I was a kid. 

We have Aunt Mary, my brother Cory, Grandma Shirley, and Uncle Dan in this picture. I'm pretty sure Harrison fell asleep right away.

This is an odd angle, but I think that's my cousin Casey. He's a pilot and came to visit us when we lived in Florida and in Texas, which I think is so awesome! He has a cute, lively little girl now. 

Uncle Wade and Jeremy and Karissa and some of their kids. 

I stayed with the Detlings for a few weeks while my mom made a trip to Louisiana when I was a kid. Aunt Jerie Lynn taught me how to French braid and made me a night gown. :-) 

My sister Tonya and Jen Bunney and myself. We call her Bunney because her maiden name was Bunney (but pronounced French-like: Boo * Nay). She was a good friend we worked with and our boss called her Bunny, so it stuck. 

She has quite a story herself. We were 16 or so; we worked at McDonalds together, and I was trying to figure out the perfect time to invite her to church. Before I knew it my sister told me she had invited Jen to youth group next Friday, and I was shocked that someone could just do that so quickly! 

Jen came with us and started going to church every weekend, if I remember right. I don't remember the exact timeline, but I remember she came to a youth group lock-in for New Years, and my cousin Dustin was there and he told us, "Ya'll need to evangelize that girl." 😅

At some point she wanted to get baptized and pretty quickly she and Dustin started dating. At some other point she moved in with us because she had been living on her own, and she could save money by living with us. That was a fun year. I ended up going off to Bible college,
and she got engaged, and pretty soon I was in Dustin and Jen's wedding! That's the way to keep your friends though ~ by getting them to marry into the family. 😍

Aunt Betsy and Dustin, my Dad and Doug.

Candi, Neal and Cory.

More Detlings and Bob.

Tiffany and kids, Danae, and Jen Bunney.

I'm so sorry I don't know all these names, but they come from the Slippys.

Grandma (my dad's mom), Nathan and Holly. I really enjoyed spending time with Dustin and Nathan when we were kids, and I was so, so happy when I heard that Nathan and Holly had named their youngest daughter Lanaya. 😊

Here are the two Lanaya's. 

She wasn't quite sure that there could be another Lanaya, so she finally settled on calling me Cousin Lanaya and then we got along just fine. :-) 

The bounce house was a big hit with the littles. There were so many children running around!!

Adorable. 

Kids of Nathan/Holly, Dustin/Bunney, and Trina Dee/Javier.

Playing in the dirt!

Evidence of playing in the dirt.

Harrison and Josiah and Casey and his girl and one of Trina Dee's girls on the trampoline.

I don't know if this is super helpful to anyone. There are hardly any actual Smiths who come to the reunion, and I don't know them well. We did live with Grandpa and Grandma Smith a couple of different times during our Spokane years, so I have special memories of them (canning, watching Unsolved Mysteries, spending time in the most gardened city backyard that I've ever seen, eating all the fresh produce, grandma teaching me to crochet).

 Grandma Shirley married a Clouse and had seven children who then had 26 children amongst them.

Aunt Mary Jane married a Slippy and had four kids who had 10 or so children amongst them.

Once we moved to Washington, we spent a lot of most excellent time with these cousins. 

Now we cousins all have kids and our kids are getting married (I believe Tiffany is the only one with a married child, but I think there are 3 who are engaged including our Lanaya Elizabeth).

My Dad sent this after seeing the missing spots in my napkin family line. 

Much better ~ thanks, Dad!

All the separate families got pictures.

This is Grandma Shirley and her kids and spouses (minus Uncle Joe who couldn't be here).

Dad's family that could make it. (We missed you, Mike and Nettie!)

The Clouses who could make it.

All of us. 

Some people came before this or showed up after. One possible number of people who were at the reunion is 116 (I heard several numbers).

Aunt Mary! She was so great to us kids. She took us all camping once (or twice?). Brave woman. 

She is coming out of a cancer diagnosis and healing process. She's so great about it. She definitely makes cancer seem less scary. Her humor led to lots of jokes about cancer surviving. Mainly her begging for mercy during cards since she's a cancer survivor. 😂

Aunt Betsy, Dad, Mom, Cory.

My nephew Jordan did so well. 

He doesn't always love crowds, but he got his alone time in the house and interacted with people too.

The meal line. 

Taco bar for one meal and pulled pork and salads for the other. All of it delicious and way too much food for my belly!

 Aunt Jerie Lynn and Aunt Mary.

Mom and nephew Joshua. 

It was fun to talk to him more this weekend. He's growing up, taking driver's ed, playing instruments, acting in plays, mowing lawns..... he has a lot going on! And he's quite musically talented.

We went to church with some family on Sunday. Little Lanaya on her other grandpa's lap.

Nathan taught Sunday School; I really loved getting to hear him teach. His wife Holly is so sweet. She homeschools her kids, and I always enjoy talking homeschool. 

We went to spend more time together as an immediate family at Tonya's house in Zillah, WA. More cards, more food, more visiting, some movies (Live action Cinderella and Mama Mia). I was glad we got this. At the reunion, I could concentrate on more distant relatives knowing I would get time with sister and brother later.

Okay, forgive me. But I wanted to post all the different kinds of mountains we went through. I love mountains! 

Harrison was right when he said they were pretty cool, but that they probably would get commonplace if you lived among them. I think that's true. But when you haven't seen them for a while, they are so mighty and strong and awesome looking. They just remind me of God. 

I don't know if these are efficient or cost effective or anything like that, but I like them. They remind me of Don Quixote fighting windmills. And they're huge! We saw a number of windmill farms on our drive.

These are actual ruts from the Oregon Trail journey. I slowly realized that our drive home followed the Oregon Trail. Since we were driving home from Tonya's, we took a different route and I loved being able to see different mountains. I loved the cool mornings and evenings of the high elevations. I have to say that Wyoming was my favorite state on this trip.

Oregon Trail map.

Grass fire! We saw several fires and also dust devils.

Whew! I only wish now that I had talked to more people. But we made great memories. I'm so glad Harrison came and will also have good memories of our famous family reunions. :-)