Family Reunion

Katie’s family reunion normally happens at Thanksgiving each year, but with the recession hitting everyone hard last year and travel prices climbing the family decided to delay last year’s annual reunion.  Instead, everyone planned to meet here in Louisiana in June at Jeem’s Bayou Hunting and Fishing Club, to which Katie’s grandmother belongs.  That time came this past week, and the Katie and I took off a few days to go and hang out with her family. 

As always, when her family is involved, we had a good time.  The key ingredient to our happiness was of course the food.  We had pie night, a staple in her family, where everyone has their favorite pie made and those pies serve as dinner.  There was the traditional gumbo (Katie’s grandma makes killer gumbo… not deadly, just killer), greenbird turkey, taco salad, burgers, fish, pancakes, bacon, and last but not least… blue bell ice cream.  I love you, Blue Bell.

The second ingredient that made this year great was the location -  the club house (for lack of a better word) at Jeem’s Bayou Hunting and Fishing Club.  Not only is the house a few hundred feet from Caddo Lake (with a pier 30 feet or so into Caddo Lake), but the entire family was able to stay there comfortable – all 20 or so of us.  They had 10 rooms over two floors and enough room to seat us when it came time for dinner.  There were nets for badminton or volleyball, swings, benches on the pier, and rocking chairs scattered all over the place within a screened porch.  It was a great place to have so many people with so many different interests.

I hope everyone else had as good a time as I did… although from looking at me, a city boy who sits at a desk in the air conditioning playing on a computer for at least 8 hours a day, Katie’s family probably thought I was miserable.  Anywho, I’m posting the pictures to flickr from the week, including some from our family trip to Jefferson, TX and the boat tour of Caddo Lake (both on Wednesday of this week).