Friday Review: Family Reunion Edition

Every February, the whole Hines family gathers in Northern Michigan for an epic family reunion! My in-laws have a cabin on a lake and some fun snow equipment like snowmobiles and a Ranger that can go off-roading. But the biggest draw? Spending time with family! Fun fun fun fun!

Now in the spirit of humility and honesty- the Hines family is not perfect! There are a lot of people, and with that can come a lot of emotions, some debate (sometimes healthy; sometimes a little bit unhealthy), there is always some heightened emotions, little sleep and always some not so fun germs. In fact, we got so sick this time around that at one point in my fever-ish/super sick/super low emotions I said “WE ARE NEVER GOING TO A FAMILY REUNION AGAIN”. Now that I’m feeling better and have a little bit more perspective, I know that it is SO worth it to spend time with family. But I also don’t want to present something that appears perfect to the outside world, when the reality is that with any type of family gathering can come some struggles 🙂

Our family left Thursday afternoon after school got out and we made some good driving time until we stopped for dinner. We pulled into a Chipotle parking lot and TWO FULL BUSES of a basketball team had just unloaded into the Chipotle. Needless to say, we did not get dinner there haha.

The rest of the drive after dinner was a bit rough…there was some baby crying, and I distinctly remember someone fighting about someone else touching their toe. Siblings, man. You gotta love them…until you are stuck in a car with them for 7+ hours, then all bets are off. We finally arrived around 10pm and fell into bed, exhausted.

Friday

Friday morning we woke up to explore the most beautiful Airbnb we were staying in. Four couples got their own rooms and then about 17 kids were crammed into a bunk room, with the teenage boys in another bedroom. FULL HOUSE.

We grabbed some breakfast and the Dads took the kids out to find a geocache in the woods.

We gathered to take some family photos and then headed out to lunch at the China buffet!

After lunch, the men who were 12+ went to play some indoor, virtual golf while the ladies took all the younger kids back to the house. The kids hung out in the garage or the family room and played their hearts out. As my kids have gotten older, I barely see them for three days at the family reunion because they just form a cousin gang and are mostly self-sufficient.

Of course, the kids got to pick “treasures” from Grandpa’s treasure box! Grandpa has been doing this treasure box for years. He and Grandma work really hard to collect treasures from garage sales, thrift stores, dollar stores, etc. They pick up knick-knacks, figurines, wallets, keychains, etc. The grandkids absolutely love this tradition.

The sunset over the lake was beautiful! This year we had almost no snow and it honestly wasn’t as cold as it usually is in northern Michigan in February.

Saturday

On Saturday, it was the ladies turn to go out and leave all the kids at home. We always go thrifting and then out to lunch. This is the first year that we had girls over the edge of 12 who were able to join the ladies!

Back at the house, there was more strategy games, more puzzles, more garage 4 square, crafts with Grandma, playing the bells with Grandma, and lots of hanging out! This is the part of the reunion where exhaustion starts to overtake excitement. I even had to wake Orion up (with Ezra’s help) from his nap so that he wouldn’t sleep too late!

Uncle Titus brought the Apple Vision Pro and it was a whole experience. It’s not just a virtual reality headset, it syncs with your eyes and you can control with your vision? I’m still baffled by this, and I actually had no interest in trying it because I was afraid it would make me nauseas!

We wrapped up our last night of the family reunion by playing Poetry for Neanderthals. We are always looking for group games that can be played with a large amount of people of varying levels. If you ever have any suggestions, let me know!

This year our time at the reunion was a bit shorter (we were the last family to arrive), but we sure did make the most of the 2 days that we had! We spent one last night at the Airbnb, then cleaned up, got breakfast and headed back to Ohio! Next up is our sisters trip later this month, and then we get to look forward to the summer family reunion!