Miller reunion and grandma's birthday

This past weekend was our marathon Miller Reunion and celebration for Grandma's 90th birthday later this summer. Most everybody made it for at least part of the weekend. We met down at Crooked Creek Christian Camp on Friday evening and finally broke up at 1pm on Sunday. From there we went to grandma's open house at Fairview Mennonite church in Kalona.

So, what does one do at a reunion celebrating the "Tribe of Mahlon"?

We all look at pictures: Danny, grandma and Ben
And then we all get to know each other again: Yvonne with Ian and Rachelle with one of Angie's twins.

And of course we play games, and more games, and more games...

Do not play Monopoly with these guys! They are wicked.

"Dutch Blitz" Definately a family past time.

We take pictures...

There are 30 first cousins. We were only missing 6 (Monty, Roger, Tim, Adam, Heidi and Rob).
Back row: Art, Ryan, Scott, Josh, Kendal, Jed, Micah, Steve

Middle row: Liz, Jen, Shannon, Rachelle, Mike, Jared, Dan, Katelyn

Bottom row: Laura (me), Sheila, Angie, Kim, Taylor, Becky, Bethany, Sarah

My Grandma is on the very bottom.

The aunts and uncles: Paul, Mark, Elmer, Barb, Ben, Mary (mom), Ez, Nora (Bets), Verton and Danny with grandma on the bottom. Uncle Joe passed away last August.

Cuddles with grandma.

Aaron climbing the rock wall.

Playing pool with Keegan.
From Crooked Creek we went to the church for grandma's open house. I won't bore you with all the details other than there were a lot of people. At one point the line went out into the parking lot. So while grandma and the aunts and uncles stood in the receiving line, some of us cousins sat and "descreetly" took pictures of some of the Amish kids coming through. Please note the bare feet. I tried to get a close up of the feet, especially the boys, but couldn't. They were extremely dirty little feet.

We are referred to as the "Tribe of Mahlon" because of my grandpa who passed away in 1990. One of the things we talked about at the reunion is how greatful we are that grandma and grandpa provided such a good Christian home to their kids.

And we'll do it all again in June, 2011.

Family visit

We are just coming off of a very busy weekend and I have more pictures than I can fit into one post. I'll start with Ben and then move on to the Miller reunion.

My brother Scott, Beth and baby Ben (not sure why I call him that) got here on Thursday evening. They hung out here for a little bit before leaving to spend the night at Ryan and Natasha's. Then we all met up again down at Crooked Creek Christian Camp for the Miller Reunion and Grandma's 90th birthday.

I am of course, totally hooked on my nephew. I wish I would have thought to take a picture of one of Scott's baby pictures because they look exactly alike. In fact, Aaron grabbed a picture of Scott when he was a baby and said it was a really cute picture of Ben.

Grandpa Chuck and Ben.

Andrew and Ben checking each other out.

My mom with Ben.

promotions

Friday, I had the opportunity to go to Aaron's 4th grade promotion. This is actually his 3rd promotion since entering school. He of course was promoted from preschool to kindergarten. And then from kindergarten to 1st grade. And now my 10 year old is being promoted from 4th grade. He's leaving the budding years of elementary school behind him and moving on to Intermediate School, where he will be on the fast track to those pre-teen, adolescent years that scare me so much. *sigh*

So, my son who will graduate in the class of 2017, is officially a 5th grader (actually, it's not official until tomorrow, which is the last day of school).

And what's with the cheesy school pictures anyway? I've really grown to not like these things because my dear, dear child cannot pose a picture to save his life. Note the kindergarten next to the 4th grade. I think I'll save this for graduation day, that and his future wife. I can't think of a better way to torture the poor child.

I much prefer the more mature looking picture below. I'd much rather have no smile than the cheesy thing above.

Now on to the fun of Scouts. Because no post about Aaron would be complete without Scouts. He is a Cub Scout through and through and is reaching for his Arrow of Light.

We did do a family campout last weekend up at the Boy Scout Camp Wakonda. It was a pretty fun trip, other then the freezing cold temps that Saturday night. We did our 3 mile hike, which wouldn't have been so bad. Except it wasn't until you got to the bottom of the hill that you realized you had to go back up it. Oh, and then down the next and up again.

I didn't do very well taking pictures this time around. I was too distracted doing other things. We did do foil packets for supper. Each of the boys made there own meals. We used alluminum foil and layered cabbage on the bottom, followed by hamburger and your choice of vegies (potatoes, onion, grn pepper, carrots, mushrooms, corn, green beans, mushroom soup, lawrey's seasoning) and topped with a good dallop of butter. DELISH!!

Cooking our foil packets...



Aaron "finally" discovered smores on this camping trip. As many times as we've tried to convince him that roasted marshmallows are really good, he wouldn't have anything to do with them. Well, we had a major break through in the picky eating department. My son actually likes smores.lol

Fancy Toes

I met with friends from our spring Bible study so we could get pedicures. Now, I have never before had a pedicure, but I think I might do it again. I'm not one for painted toenails, but they do kind of grow on you.