Family Reunion 2008 Bunkerville, NV

We gathered in Bunkerville today for the Vincen Leavitt Family Reunion. Of the 5children Vincen and Erma had, 3 were here today with various members of their family. Bert (Janae's dad) passed away in 1982, and Tommy passed away earlier this year. Prior reunions had at least 175 people however today attendance was down - probably in the 85 to 95 range as kids are away at school, away serving missions, and Uncle Tommy's entire tribe was away at a wedding.

Our numbers were down but our enthusiasm was up. Janae organized games for the kids and the young at heart. We had sack races, three-legged races, and sprints (I didn't enter - bad hammy). We also had a great tug-o-war battle with the over 30 age group beating our younger family members. The old guys actually just leaned and used our considerable weight advantage although Kip almost singlehandedly won it for the kids.

We tossed the football around and I zipped passes on deep posts and fade routes with my usual skill. Haha! Janae handed out a lot of prizes that the little kids just LOVED. We then took a ride through B-ville on a large trailer that seated about 75 of us while Uncle Vin gave a narrative of the cool places long since graded over by progress. The history of the town is neat and it is important that our kids know where their forebears lived and HOW they lived. We stopped at the cemetary and visited the gravesite of Grandma and Grandpa Cowboy, Bert, and Janae's sister Jilleen who passed away in 1992. Aunt Anne did a nice job and prepared a short handout for all family members that talked about their ancestors.

We then all grabbed some lunch and had a short family update that featured an odd story by Uncle Vin about Bert's lost eagle scout pin with palms (?). Grammy talked about her family and how a long, long time ago, Bert brought her to B'Ville to meet the family - that was some 63 years ago. Dixie spoke briefly about his gratitude for family and our responsibility to maintain these relationships. Everyone then just sort of hung out and visited in small groups, and families got together for photos. We had a fun experience with Josh and Kiersten trying to get them and their 5 kids up in a tree for a family picture. There were a lot of tears!

As with any get together, it's not a real party until something gets broke. My dear sweet niece Hannah managed to break 2 bones in her wrist while body surfing the extra-large soccer ball. She was a trooper and waited about 4 hours for Carolyn to take her to the Quick Care in Mesquite. Psssst.....zero wait too. We're better off driving to Mesquite if we get hurt versus going to a Quick Care in town that typically has a long wait, a completely uninterested and lazy staff, and lots of sick people hacking up who-knows-what in the waiting room. I like the small town vibe.

I enjoyed the gathering as you can see by my smile. We had a beautiful day and I can't believe I'm actually going to say this but, the reunion was too short! I would have liked a few more hours and a lot more people. We missed not having Jake, Alec and Tiffany with us. Our family was just me and Janae. How pathetic! We will meet again in two years and hopefully our tribe will all be together.

On the way home we stopped in Logandale at the Pomegranate Festival. Yeah, it's true, look it up. We bought a bag of pomegranates for $15 bucks and the thing must have weighed 50 pounds. It was important that we get the RIGHT pomegranates....apparently, like anything, there is an art to picking the right kind of fruit. Some guy named Earl cracked open a pomegranate with his big sausage fingers and scrapped some of the insides into Janae's hand as I looked on horrified....I didn't see any hand-sanitizer nearby so I was freaking out on the inside about germs. Maybe they don't exist in small towns? We wandered around the festival for a few minutes while a band played off key but without restraint. Me...at a Pomegranate festival. I smirked to myself....city boy in the sticks.

I couldn't wait to get home to my cell phone and directv.