Tuesday, July 26, 2011

In Celebration of 30 Years!

My family has been spending a week together at the beach for 30 years. We started out as a group of 11 and now we've grown to 27! We all stay in the same house. Close quarters, yes; but we wouldn't have it any other way. (That's me in the shadow of my dad's arm below.)

This year to celebrate our 30th year together we played a little game. (We are a super-competitive group, always up for a challenge!)
It started with a stack of pictures, one group shot from each of our 30 years, and an empty pennant.
The first challenge was to put the stack of group pictures in order by year.
This, of course, brought on tons of laughter as we pointed out homemade jean shorts on the adult men, 80's hairstyles that we hope never return, and the awkward years... oh the awkward years!
The next part of the game was answering 50 questions that all started with "In what year did..."
In what year did
...we bring the big trampoline to the beach? (yes, we did... two years actually!)
...we make potato cannons? (that had a range of about 100 yards I might add!)
...we have our first Murder Mystery?
...we watch the sea turtles hatch?
...one uncle roast each one of us in his underwear? (true story!)
It was hilarious to relive all of the memories! My sweet grand daddy, Daddy Mac, had us all in stitches!
We ended the game by pinning each of our 30 pictures to the pennant in order so that we could enjoy them all week. Here I am with my brother and two cousins eating spaghetti in 1985 (one of the years we didn't get a full group shot.)
We have so much to be thankful for and here's 30 years of pictures to prove it!
Wanna see how we creatively feed that many people at the beach? I've posted about that here and here.

5 comments:

Mother of the Wild Boys said...

What an awesome activity to bring the family all together! I will have to adapt this for my own family reunion next month. Thanks!

Harish Dewani said...

congrats and wish u good luck for next 300 yrs

KillerB said...

What an AMAZING tradition. I love nothing more than when my entire family is able to get allll together, but it's rare these days now that all the "kids" have grown up. Kudos for keeping this family reunion going into another generation!

Elizabeth said...

That is seriously fantastic! I love the banner and photos.
This is why I force my extended family to sit for a group shot every time we gather.

Love Being A Nonny said...

Fellow North Carolina blogger here. I LOVE this post. Love it!!!!!!! What a great idea. I may steal this one!