Jackson family reunion 2018.

After arriving home to a home that had a piece of plywood instead of a back door (and so, SO many other things that make me tired just thinking about them) I was in no shape to pull things together for a family reunion.  At our house.

That’s right.  All 23 members of my extended family were coming to Boise for our bi-annual Jackson family reunion.

I had invited them all up here in anticipation of our addition being complete, but when it was not progressing as expected, we booked a few hotel rooms up the street to hedge our bets.  But I still thought we would at least have FLOORS by the time we pulled this thing off!

Lucky for us, Boise is a fantastic outdoor destination (which was kind of the point of hosting the reunion here during the summer) so we made plans to be out of the house as much as possible.

And, by golly, it worked!

Thankfully, we had prepped the meals ahead of time for easy cooking and our kitchen was in working order so that was no problem.  We floated the Boise River, went to the Shakespeare Festival, had summer fun at a local ski resort, went swimming at our neighborhood pool, played games, and spent a day at the “beach”.

There was fun for all ages and it was delightful to spend time together.  Memories to last a lifetime.

Here are the pictures to prove it.

One activity that was especially fun for me to plan (and for everyone else to carry out) was our version of Relative Race.  We all divided into teams (by family, generally-speaking) and raced around town to find various sites of interest.  At each site, the teams were expected to perform a “challenge” related to our family history/culture.

For instance, at one station entitled “Guess Who?”, one player expected to ask questions (with yes or no answers) to determine which of our ancestors the other players had selected.  Like the board game “Guess Who?”.

At another station, they were given a four-generation fan chart (blank) and had to match names of our family members to the correct place on the chart.

For the third one, we obtained baby pictures of all the people in our family and they had to determine who was who.

And at the last station, each child(under 18) was asked why their parents gave them their name and/or what their name means.  (I, of course, contacted parents ahead of time for this one).

All in all, our family got to see a bit more of Boise, discover a bit more about our ancestors and learn more about ourselves and each other in the process.  Fun all around!