This year was my parent's turn to host the McGarry family reunion. If there is one thing McGarry's are good at it's having reunions. I've been to almost one million of them. I used to dread them. The reunions of my youth were usually held at some dumpy park in Dubois and little attention was paid to entertainment. It was mostly just a bunch of old cowboys talking. BORING! Especially when you are a teenager, with way better things to do. This reunion was for the Roy and Mary McGarry family (my grandparents) so I know, and happen to like, everyone who came.
My mom gets a gold star, A++, and the above and beyond award for putting this baby together.
For starters, somehow she got Dad to drag that wagon over. We used to feed the cows hay from it. It was kind of fun to pitch fork it off, except when it was cold. It was almost always cold, so I mostly drove the tractor. Anyway, we feed people from it now. Reuse. Re-purpose.
We were planning for heat, but we got rain. That's Idaho for you. At least most of the tables were covered.
My Dad is a nostalgic person. After Grandma died there were some things of hers that Mom wanted to update (paint). Those things mysteriously disappeared. For the reunion, he brought out some of the toys and games that I didn't know he even had. We used to play with them when we went next door to visit Grandma & Grandpa. I remember spending hours with the Lite-Brite and Grandpa calling out the numbers when we played Bingo.
I think these angora chaps were my great (possibly great-great) grandpa's. The others belonged to Grandpa.
This was one of Grandpa's saddles, apparently it's not very comfortable. Also, his hats and some of the tack he gave to my Dad.
Of course, once the food was served, the weather improved. At least we got to use all the water activities we had planned,
including this contraption: a water blob. It's a good thing, because we spent a considerable amount of time the day before duct taping two sheets of visqueen together. Thanks Pinterest! The kids loved it.
Another pre-reunion project was to paint this frame to provide some photo opportunities. We sprayed it in the garage and should not have left it there, because Dad doesn't think to check for painted frames before he pulls his "outfit" into the garage. Kudos to Rob for fixing the frame. Seriously how cute is this family?? I can't get enough of Krew and Emri.
I have to include a pregnant shot of Whitney.
In addition to kids fun, Dad made sure the home movies were available for anyone's viewing pleasure. Grandma had a Super-8 camera and took lots of film of moving cows and from some of the trips they took. Sunday nights we would go over to their house, pop some popcorn and watch home movies on their movie screen. We also hung old family pictures across the back of the canopy.
The weather went from drizzling rain, to sunshine to crazy monsoon. The reunion ended with a frantic rush to take everything down. That's a way to end a reunion quickly.
Matt has been the victim of one or two boring McGarry reunions and he agrees that this was by far the best reunion yet. It really is great to get together with family. And good to see that the cowboy tradition will live on.
