the reunion begins

my dad took my mom to bear lake for their honeymoon. as a wedding gift, he gave her a little plot of land on the east side of the lake. that was 43 years ago. the eyre family hasn’t missed a summer at bear lake since.

i don’t think i’ve ever looked forward to the reunion more than this year. i needed to be close to family so dearly. and for those four halycon days last week, it was so good to be together – just the 41 of us!

this year my brother tal and his wife anita were in charge of the reunion. i helped them make a pretty awesome schedule board:

we had a big breakfast and “opening ceremonies” to kick off the reunion:
we were all so excited and gathered close after eating for the annual “song reveal”:every year we each choose one song to contribute to the “reunion cds.” we choose songs that meant something to us that year, or just that make us want to dance. we play the songs one by one and try to guess whose it is by pointing them out:
there was so much love in that room that morning. real, dense, golden love. and also some great dance moves.

after some morning tennis, we all met at the beach pavilion for some “jonah bugers.” my brother jonah makes the best burgers on earth. writing about them right now is making me salivate. his special blend of spices and tricks like adding a beet or mango slice to your stack make for a truly exquisite eating experience.my nephews max and ashton decided to make double-doubles:

the highlight of the reunion for me was meeting my new neice annina. she’d been on this earth for seven months and i’d never cuddled her. seeing my brother as a dad for the first time was incredibly sweet. i couldn’t get enough of annina! 

the first day of the reunion was also my brother eli’s 29th birthday. his wife julie has a tradition of creating the number of years old he is turning out of different materials. the medium this year? ten pounds of haribo goldbear gummies!
storms at bear lake are the best – and they kept rolling in and out this year. they come swiftly and fiercely and turn the world different colors.
when it started pouring right after lunch, a few of us girls ran out onto the beach to dance in the rain to our new reunion music. it was so awesome and enlivening. the dance party continued both under shelter and under rain until the storm passed.which meant some kids were chilled…so i guess we decided to see how many could fit in the hot tub?and then started up a game of beach volleyball under the stormy skies.
after dinner and the little kids are asleep, we like to play games together. unfortunately saturday night i was feeling super sick and had to miss out. i hate hate hate to miss out, especially at the reunion– it was awful. good thing we had gotten some great rounds of ripple in the night before:
i love these people and this place so much it hurts.