Family Reunion

The weekend near July 24th has been a long standing date for the Allen Family Reunion. It is a time for eating, playing and good ol' fashioned family bonding! Everyone who can, heads to Island Park and brings their families and gear and secret dutch oven recipes! It has been many years since all of us were able to attend. Not all of our children were able to make it, but the 10 of us were there. It was amazing! Living in Alaska for so long, we were not able to attend most of the reunions. It is so fun to live close enough to be able to go. Linda lives in Oklahoma and so she doesn't usually make it either. I am so glad that we were both able to be there this year!!

Here we are posing with Mom and Dad. Aren't we adorable?? Can you tell who's oldest??

Mom and Dad and the boys! These are some pretty amazing specimens of manhood! My brothers are awesome! No girl could ask for better! They are all great husbands and fathers! Love ya, Bro's!
Sisters, Sisters, never were there such devoted sisters!! My Mom took me aside and told me how proud she is of her daughters. She had been watching us and realized that she raised some pretty awesome daughters. She's right, my sisters are pretty special!! Beautiful too!!

Here's the grand and great grandkids that were there on Saturday. This is not all by a long shot! I think I counted wrong for an earlier post. I think there are 46 grandchildren and I forget how many greats. I had 2 of my kids, Emily and Luke there and Emily's three kids. Nathan, Smokie's baby was only about 10 days old.

It is a tradition to float the river each year. We usually do it in two trips because there are so many of us, but this year we really tried to get enough water crafts to do it in one trip. Here we are in the staging area at the beginning of the float. It took forever to get everyone jacketed up and into the water!!

Dad, Linda and Mike took all of the little girls and Sammy in the big raft. I think Tony was there helping them too. They had so much fun!

This is me in my kayak. I was nervous because there are rapids on the river and I have never navigated rapids in my kayak, but I did fine. Scott stayed with me through the first set and then turned me loose to do the rest. It was actually kind of fun to shoot the rapids, of course these were not too bad. I did swamp the kayak, but it was when I was trying to pull into the bank to pick some fireweed for TJ. (He wants to make some fireweed jelly.) I came in a wee bit too fast and went under. Thanks, Sean for coming to my rescue! I came out mostly unscathed. I have a few bruises on my wrist and elbow but that's pretty much it. (Well, there's a couple on my leg.)
Boys floatin' down the river.
Here's Dad checking out the karaoke. He didn't really get involved until Saturday night when he sang a tear jerking rendition of, "God Bless America." Nothing touches your heart more than a veteran singing the love of his country. Dad has a beautiful voice and I love to hear him sing. Of course, we grew up with him singing "After the Ball Was Over," "Let me Loose, Blubber," and "The Drinking Song." He didn't drink, he just loved to sing the song! He had a bunch of goofy songs he would sing for us!

Annette and Linda got the night going with their singing! They both have beautiful voices.


Mallory really loved the karaoke and loved getting up and singing with everyone. Saturday night she sang a solo of "I Am a Child of God."


This is just a random shot of the fam milling around. See the garbage can on the tripod? Paul cooked a turkey in there for dinner. Yum!

What a wonderful weekend! It was so fun to be together. We missed all those who weren't able to be there with us, but we know that we will have another reunion next year and another chance to get together. Love you family!!