It’s time to recap the annual Hines Family Reunion! I know that I do this every year, but if you are new around here, these are the important things to know about the Hines family and our reunions.
- There are seven Hines brothers. Five are married. We have 19 children between the five families. Yes, it’s a lot of people.
- We head up to Northern Michigan where my in-laws have a cabin on a lake! We all cram 2-3 families to a house and live like sardines for a few days.
- My mother in law is an amazing woman and plans all the food! We all chip in to help prepare it and clean it up, but it’s incredible how much food can be prepared in a regular sized kitchen!
- The brothers love to play strategy games and deeply discuss all manner of topics. The cousins all run around playing games, in the sandbox, on the boat, etc. We basically arrive on Thursday evening and I don’t see my kids much until Sunday morning when we leave.
- We are all very different, but somehow all get along. We have major personality differences, religious differences, political differences and different life experiences, but there has never been much drama. There is often heightened emotions and personality clashes, but I am so thankful that a family of this size with this many differences can just all get along.
- One thing that most of the family has in common is a medical background. Theo’s Dad is a doctor and his Mom is a nurse. Two brothers are doctors and one brother is a nurse. Two of the sister-in-laws are also nurses. Then there is a family of programmers and us, the law enforcement family. It certainly makes for a lot of interesting stories around the dinner table!
We arrived Thursday afternoon and immediately jumped right into conversations and catching up. Although we have the reunion every year, it has been a few years since we were ALL together. And this year two of the brothers did end up missing the reunion.
We had dinner and then put on a move for the kids. We left all 19 kids with Grandpa and Grandma and all the married couples headed out on the boat for a canal cruise. This is one of my favorite parts of the reunion. We all laugh A LOT. And it’s so fun to catch up without all the kiddos right around us. Huge shout out to Grandpa and Grandma and the three older boys for holding down the fort with all the kids!!
After our boat ride, we all headed back to our respective lodging places. We got the kids down (Tera was SO THRILLED to have a sleepover with her cousins) and then all the guys got together to play games while all the ladies got together to chat and catch up. We went to bed way too close to midnight!
The next morning was scheduled for family pictures, so we all met and headed over to take some pictures in the woods. The last time we were all together with all the kids present was in Summer of 2016. I was pregnant with Kiah! Tera is in pink being held by Grandma.
I think it’s safe to say we have grown a bit since then… we have added NINE kids since 2016.
The entire Hines family (minus the two brothers who did not come to the reunion)
Mom and Dad with 5 (of 7) of their sons…
Brothers// Sisters (by marriage!)
We took individual family photos
And we also got some great pictures of the cousins all together.
Boy cousins// Girl cousins
We also accomplished the greatest feat of all time, and lined up all 19 cousins in age order…
This took a lot of organization, as well as quite a few tears (from the younger than 2 crowd), and lots of uncles shouting and hooting like banshees just to get everyone to look at the camera…
But we did it! Well, mostly…
It’s so fun how there are three big boys, then like 8 girls before the next boy came. Such a fun family dynamic!
After pictures, we were all exhausted so we headed back to the cabin for lunch and some naps for the kids. The older kids wanted to play in the water so the sisters sat down by the water and watched them. It was actually pretty chilly and very windy, so it was a horrible day for tubing and being out on the boat! The guys all went shooting on some land nearby. They like to try different guns and different holsters and different angles and different scenarios. Theo actually hates shooting in a range because he feels like it gives him no real life practice. He wants to practice shooting while running and shooting from laying on the ground and shooting with his non-dominant hand because those are all very realistic scenarios that could happen to him on the job. So needless to say, the men love having a couple hours to go out and practice together.
The afternoon is filled with a lot more playing, a lot of fun on Grandpa’s recreational equipment and even a trip out on the boat – I had a headache so I did not want to be out on the boat, but all my kids went and had a blast tubing!
The ladies got started working on a puzzle
One of my favorite things over the years has been watching the oldest boys turn into true young men. They are such a delight to be around, and it was totally noticeable this year that the oldest (16) preferred more of the company of the men than the kids. I got married into the family 9 years ago, and these boys were just barely potty trained and I distinctly remember one of my very first times I was with the Hines family, one of them choked on a peanut and barfed everywhere. Now look at them!
We rounded up Friday with a little bit of an earlier bedtime for the kids but the adults still stayed up late talking and playing games.
Saturday the highlight of the day is when all the Moms leave all the kids at home and go to a local thrift store for the morning. We then head out for lunch together. It’s such a sweet and special time and we have been doing this for a few years now, so it is a long-upheld tradition.
Since it was the final day of the reunion, the afternoon was spent catching up, doing last minute projects and just generally winding down. Puzzles & Pandemic (the game!)
A tie-dye project with Grandma and Aunt Sarah
Some dinner. There was a wild wind storm and we all ran inside and got the picnic tables inside, only for nothing to happen. So we took all the picnic tables back out. Just when we were ready to sit down, it started raining on us, but by the time we got everything back into the garage, it was sunny again. Haha.
After dinner, Grandpa took almost all of the grandkids out in his ranger to ride some trails in the woods. In case you haven’t noticed, that is a lot of kids.
Meanwhile, back at the house, someone locked their keys in the car. The brothers all took it as a personal challenge to see who could be the first one to unlock the door. They all worked together, but also had some healthy competition and managed to get it unlocked after about 25 minutes. I guess they need to go into the lock picking business together!
And that was a wrap on the Hines family reunion 2021!! It does take us about a full week to recover from our time together, but in the end we always conclude that it is worth it. Not everyone has family that is such a gift, and even though reunions can feel like A LOT, it is something that I try to continue to put forth effort towards and have a good attitude about. I don’t know how long we will keep carrying on the annual reunion, so for now we will continue to enjoy it and be thankful for our time together!