Celebrating Two Big Birthdays with a Small Family Reunion

Wow, what a weekend!  I'm still coming down from something I've been planning for a year.  In 2014, I realized that my father would turn 80 in December this year, and his sister would be 90 in October.  In addition, this year is my father's 35th wedding anniversary, and I thought that should be celebrated as well.  I decided that it would be a great idea to have family members meet up in northwest Florida, where both my father and his sister live, to celebrate these milestones.

I set everything up from California, including finding restaurants, a caterer, a bakery, and an event room.  I kept track of all the responses for who was coming, and unfortunately the one last-minute cancellation.  (We missed you, Ruth Anne!)

And somehow it managed to work.  Family members came from Maryland, Pennsylvania, Texas, and other parts of Florida, and me from California.  In total we had 20 attendees, which was probably about as many as we could handle.  Several of us had not seen each other for many years, and it was great to get together in honor of the "birthday kids."

I encouraged people to bring photos with them so that they could be scanned and then shared among everyone.  I am so happy some of my relatives took me up on that!  I scanned about 100 photos, and almost all of them are already identified!

One of the highlights of the weekend was sharing with everyone the recent discovery that my grandfather's original birth record said he was female.  My father in particular was highly amused to learn this news about his father.

Here are some of the photos from the weekend.  Unfortunately, we weren't able to coordinate one of all of us together, but everyone shows up in at least a few.