July 4th was on a Monday this year. Salmon chose to celebrate the holiday the weekend before the 4th, and so did Josh's family. His family usually gets together for the 4th anyway, but this year we also celebrated Ed & Kathy's 50th wedding anniversary at our family reunion. Instead of Kathy being in charge of the food and schedule (which is the norm), Josh and his siblings split up the meals and the responsibilities for the 2-day reunion on Friday, July 1st and Saturday the 2nd.
The annual city parade was on Friday the 1st. Tiffany's family and Malachi's family were able to come, and we had our usual spot on Main Street right by the Steele Memorial Clinic parking lot, where there's a little grassy incline and a few small trees that provide shade.
Tiffany's family was in charge of dinner, and they had a marshmallow roast afterwards. She invited some of her classmates to the dinner, since it was their class reunion the same weekend. After the meal got cleared, we invited Coral and Erik up to our house to play card games, and our boys went to the Entrikin's AirBnB to play games with them.
Saturday was the big event day. Family photos were that morning. Since this wedding anniversary has been in the planning for nearly 2 years, everyone had time to make sure they were all available to come, so it was great to have everyone, including all the adult grandkids, in the family photo. Amber Pace was our photographer, and she came and took the photos in Ed & Kathy's yard.
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| Children: Tiffany, Josh, Gideon, & Malachi |
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| 16 grandchildren and 1 great-grandchild |
Gideon's family was in charge of lunch. They ordered a bunch of pizzas from town, and then Teddy opened up his birthday gifts. Josh and I went into town that afternoon for Greg Cumming's memorial ride down Main Street, and went to the church after for a meal and people spoke about their memories of Greg, who was married to Josh's cousin Trisa.
We were in charge of dinner. I made all the fixing for a taco bar: chicken and hamburger, chopped vegetables, variety of cheeses, soft and crunchy shells, chips, and homemade salsa.
After dinner, we had a family program outside. Tiffany's family did a talent show and a puppet show. Malachi put together a Kahoot game quizzing the family about details from Ed & Kathy's courtship and newlywed life, which was so fun and interesting. Tiffany had ordered a custom cake to replicate their wedding cake that she presented to them, and we gave our family gift to them: a rocking bench from the Amish store. Kathy has been wanting one for two years, and so I proposed to all the kids last summer the gift idea to get one--as they're $1,000 each, we would need to split the cost 4 ways. Everyone agreed to it, and we purchased the bench in April and hid it in our garage until July. Only 2 weeks after we purchased it, we suddenly saw one very similar to the one we got sitting on Kathy's porch. Kathy had persuaded her mom to buy one for her. I couldn't believe it. We couldn't take the bench back, we had no other gift ideas, and now we were out $1,000 during a time when my husband was unemployed. We still gave the bench to her, and his siblings eventually reimbursed us for their portion, but the whole element of surprise was gone because one of Josh's siblings thought Josh should ask her if she still wanted it before they paid him for their portion of the bench. So...Josh told his mom about our purchase before the big event, and she said she would still take it, and the other siblings finally all paid their part, but the whole situation spoiled the joy for me in giving the gift.
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| Playing games with some of the Entrikin's on Saturday evening. |
On Sunday morning, Josh's brothers left, and Tiffany's family came with us to church and ate with us afterwards before they departed as well. Overall, it worked out much better this year than years past, having a set schedule and meals distributed between Josh and his siblings. A lot of work goes into hosting the reunion, and there's a lot of unspoken expectations from his parents projected onto us that stress out Josh and I. Josh spent days cleaning out and fixing the plumbing in the outdoor pavilion to get it ready prior to the reunion, because Kathy doesn't like having people in her home. Edward is always stressed out during the reunion because it's always during hay season, and he said some extremely hurtful things to me during the reunion, which I talked to him about a few days later. Despite the amount of behind-the-scenes work that Josh and I do to help out each year, making food and cleaning up the yard and providing activities, it always ends up as not being enough in his parents' eyes. Because we live here, but all the other siblings visit from out of town, his parents' expectations of us are completely different from everyone else during these reunions. We've recognized over the years the effect this single stressful weekend has on our relationship. We understand we can't change others; we only have control over ourselves, so we've decided to do something for ourselves next year over the 4th, rather than spend it at home with extended family.
The most fun part of the 4th weekend this year was on Monday night, the actual 4th, when the Oliverson's hosted an outdoor BBQ. We spent the evening with people who've raised their kids alongside ours for the past decade, eating good food, playing lots of yard games, roasting marshmallows, lighting off fireworks, and watching the Salmon City firework display while listening to the coordinated patriotic music playing on the radio. We laughed and had so much fun just hanging out with this large group, including the: Oliversons, Williams, Deschaines, Wolffs, Hobbs, Hiltons, Bills, and us. We are blessed to have such good friends in both our life and our children's lives.
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| I loved the colors in the sky at dusk! |
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