Lyman Family Reunion

The family reunion was a lot of fun! I must say I've never really felt a lot of connection with my cousins. I have felt much more connected with Mr. N's cousins and my Grandma's Sister's grandchildren. Did you follow that last one. I'm no good at figuring that stuff out. They are like my second cousins however many times removed. My Great Aunt Hila (Grandma's Sister) was like a grandma to me. She passed away 2 years ago. Anyways, as I said before, I've never felt very connected with my own cousins. We've never lived by each other, except maybe my first two years of life. For the longest time growing up we lived in Texas, I had an Aunt in Panama, and two Aunts & my grandparents in Washington. The last reunion we had was about 20 years ago. I was 7. As I stated before, the trip there was horrible, but the reunion was a blast.

These are the tee-shirts we had made for the reunion. (The reunion was held at my aunt's place of work...a funeral home. Sick, right? It was fun. So, on the shirts we played that part up). My cousin Hila (Hila...pronounced Hi[Like "Hi, how are you"] - La, is a family name. I think my mom's great grandma was a Hila, my mom's Aunt was a Hila, my mom is a Hila, my cousin is a Hila, and my sister wants to have a Hila...if she can ever manage to produce a female offspring that is!). Lots of tangents...sorry. My cousin Hila and her mom, Debbie did so much work to put this reunion together. I don't think it would have happened without them! The shirts have lime green writing because my Grandparent's last name is Lyman, so lime green became the theme color.

Here's the family picture. I have one cousin who passed away many years ago, but other than that everyone is pictured. Oh wait, never mind. I forgot my sister and her hubby left their two boys behind with her inlaws.

This was fun...although I think not seeing myself from the back is better! I can't remember who's idea it was to get this picture, but good job!

These are my cousins. Yeah, only 8 of us. It's weird because I think Mr. N has like 80 something cousins... (okay, not really...but way more than me!)

[Top Left to Right: Arthur, Jimmy, Brad, Ben & Hila; Front Left to Right: Christina, Elka, & Me.]

These are my girl cousins. Left to Right: Christina, Elka, Me & Hila.

These are the four crazy sister's...that is my mom and her three sisters. Left to Right: Mounyene (I think if murdered the spelling of that...), Deborah, Susan and my mom.

And their back sides... We had a talent show and they decided to sing the "Sisters" song from White Christmas and were practicing. It was so funny!



My mom and El (my sister's hubby) sang a duet of "There's a hole in my bucket". That was really funny too. They had all the props and everything.



My mom is a firm believer in the fact that no social gathering is complete without teaching/singing the Chicken dance. M had a lot of fun dancing. She danced in the talent show. I was worried she would be nervous to preform, but man was I wrong! Once she realized people applauded for her when she danced we couldn't get her to stop the rest of the night. It was so funny!


This is either the Chicken Dance or the Hokey Pokey.

Me and my sweet daughter.

My cousin Brad, his wife Tarylyn & one of their sons, & Hila with L.



Here is half of Ben (starting on the left), Arthur, Jimmy's girlfriend, Elliott shaking her hand, Jimmy and Ben's step-son.

Here's Grandma with Saria.

Grandpa. He's not doing well health-wise, which is one of the major reasons we decided to have the reunion.

This is my favorite uncle, Uncle Ernie.

Hila, Aunt Sue & Aunt Debbie. Aunt Sue (middle) is amazing! She survived stage 3C breast cancer, hand quilts these amazing baby blankets and cans and bottles almost everything.

Here is my cousin Christina with her daughter. She has another little baby on the way. She doesn't look it, but in this picture she is about 2 weeks away from her due date!

Here's Hila again. I really enjoyed getting to know Hila and Christina. I got to know them more than my other cousins while we were there. They were such fun people! I know it sounds bad, but I wasn't expecting that. It's just been so long!

The Turkey was amazing!

Nice cranberry display, huh? Christina and I did that!

And we had way too many pies!