Family Reunion: Friday

Now that I've written about my Grandpa's life you can see why I think he's so amazing. He turned 90 this past March and we decided it would be great to have a family reunion to celebrate this amazing accomplishment. When my mom first suggested having a birthday celebration for Grandpa he wasn't too keen on the idea and said why not wait to have a party until he's 95 or 100, but then he agreed that now's time to do it since he might not be able to see/hear people by that time. Grandpa is extremely hard of hearing (partly due to the injuries he sustained during the war) and his eyesight has been getting progressively worse over the years since he has macular degeneration and cataracts.

My mom's two brothers, their kids and several of my sisters came to St. Louis for the weekend. Grandpa's three living children were at the reunion, as well as 12 of his 15 grandchildren. It had been 12 years since most of us had been together, so it was wonderful to be together again so that we could all catchit's up with each other.

Everyone arrived last Friday afternoon/evening.  Here are some pictures of all of us as we hung out and visited with each other. First are Elizabeth and Sarah, and then baby Emily.

Here's Miss Kate and Mattie giving Emily (a little too much) love!

The kids playing outside:

Grandpa memorabilia:

Aunt Annette holding Emily, Elizabeth showing Grandpa her rock collection and Matt playing ball with David:

Sharon and Cousin Eric:

Matt playing with David. I think it's funny how in the second picture Matt is manually turning David's head towards the camera:

We decided to make a little scrapbook for grandpa with letters from everyone and pictures to go with it. Here are some of the individual shots we took of people. First we have the "Arizona Zimmermans" as we call them. Uncle Rick and Aunt Annette, with Cousins Tina, Dan, Dave, Joe and Abby.

Uncle Steve and Aunt Jackie with Cousins Eric and Lisa, plus Chandra, Laura, and Sharon and Spencer: