Family Reunion Creates, Chaos, Kinship and Chills

A couple months ago one of my Midwestern cousins sent an email to the extended family. “I’m bringing my husband and toddler to the East – who’s up for getting together?!”

There was a round of yeses so it was planned in early July that we would gather here in Lancaster.

The first half of my cousin’s week east was spent in Virginia at the home of another cousin who couldn’t make it to the Lancaster reunion.

While they were visiting down there, I was scurrying about up here cleaning the house from top to bottom. We don’t host overnight guests all that often, so it’s a big deal when we do.

Along with cleaning and guest room prep, I had some rearranging downstairs to do to accommodate the few dozen people that would be here for brunch Saturday morning.

I took the comfy chair out of the kitchen corner and set up a drink station — coffee maker, water jug and plenty of mugs and cups. A cooler was placed on the floor nearby for meadow tea, orange juice and iced coffee.

There was some food prep for the reunion and the overnight guests to feed for two days. I had a meal plan and ingredients ready to go and made some bagels to stash in the freezer. Not too complicated.

Wednesday evening arrived and so did our guests. How good it was to see my cousin again and to finally meet her husband and little boy!

We guessed it had been about nine years since we last saw each other, so there was plenty of catching up to do.

I’ve hosted a couple of these reunions before and being the hostess means you don’t have a lot of time to sit and chat with any single person. Those two days before the reunion were a chance for us two cousins to actually get to know one another.

The introvert in me was a little worried I’d tire of having guests for a couple of days straight but it was simply wonderful to spend time with her little family.

We swam in the pond, ate meals as leisurely as a toddler allows and visited the farm animals. The boys even took the little guy on a mower ride. (Don’t worry – no blades were involved).

By Friday afternoon there was work to be done to prepare for brunch the next day. We did a bit of cleaning, I fed the sourdough starter for waffles and mixed up drinks for the evening meal.

Mid-afternoon we headed to my brother’s, who was hosting the start of the reunion. Kids swam in the pool and everyone hugged and laughed as people from near and far arrived. We snacked and chatted until it was supper time.

Besides spending time with family, my favorite part of the evening was singing the blessing before our meal. My brother’s home has very high ceilings and the four-part harmony of “I Thank the Lord My Maker” was goose-bump worthy.

Yard games, more swimming and plenty of chatting took us until bedtime. Everyone split up to their respective homes — all of the locals hosted at least one family.

I did a little last minute waffle prep, a Virginia cousin washed dishes for me — and then we slept.

I was awake early the next morning and finished brunch prep. The way we usually do this meal is the host feeds people as they trickle in from their various locations.

This was working well ... until it wasn’t. Around 9 the coffee maker started acting up. We have a Jura single cup machine and it would make a half cup before quitting.

Then the battery back-up for my quilting machine started beeping. Ah ha! The power was weak. The waffle maker gave out and finally the power totally quit and we didn’t have any water.

A cousin scurried for some buckets and filled them at the hand pump so we could at least flush toilets.

People arriving dove into the quiche, yogurt and granola since there weren’t any waffles. And we quickly devoured the little bit of iced coffee in the fridge.

Just about the time my husband hooked up the generator, our electrician figured out the main breaker was fried. Fortunately it didn’t take him long to fix and soon the waffle maker and Jura were back in action.

After everyone was satisfied with waffles, there were house tours. (We hadn’t hosted a reunion in over four years so far away family wanted to see the post-fire renovations.)

There was also a quilting demonstration and a very loud, very fast scavenger hunt for the children. Next time I’ll put 75 things on the list for them to find, since 16 items only took them about 3.8 minutes to gather.

For lunch we gathered at the farm pond. Swimming, a take-out meal provided by a cousin and more visiting rounded out our lovely and sometimes crazy 24 hours together.

We don’t get to see each other very often so thanks, cousin, for getting the ball rolling on this reunion. It was a great one, for sure.

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Zoë Rohrer is a farm mom, quilter and freelance writer in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.