I am the baby of 52 grandchildren

These are my grandparents Carl and Julia, my father's parents

They had 13 children and between those 13 children they had 52 children. And I am the baby of those children. It was a little strange for me growing in some ways because while everyone else was growing up with their first cousins I only had one first cousin even close to my age. I grew up with my second cousins and many of them are older than I am. As most of my cousins were a lot older than I was and already had families of their own. My dad's oldest sister was born in 1927 by the time my dad was 5 or 6 he was an uncle already as he was born in 1939.

I even have a couple of 3rd cousins close to my age. After both my grandparents died, my aunts tried to keep reunions going, things worked well, they would contact all the siblings and they would tell their families when and where, the issue became as Aunts and Uncle's passing away, not having cousin's numbers and cousins were losing touch. In the following photo one living brother is missing from the photo, the rest of the boys not in the photo had already passed, and sadly all but two of the boys and two of the girls are still here with us. I am very lucky that one of them is my daddy. (he's the one in the blue tank taken sometime in the mid 90s)

I am a family history nerd and have research my family tree, I have been able to get back pretty far, and always wanted to be in charge of our reunions because they had gotten to the point where not many people came anymore. But there were others in charge of our reunions. Till one year there wasn't a reunion. I saw my chance to implement what I call bringing the family back together. Cause come on up till at least 4 generations removed I don't want my daughters or son dating my cousin's grandkid. And it was getting to the point that we didn't know who had kids and who their kids were. I know my daughter became friends with two kids at school and their kid brother saw my maiden name and say hey are you related to so and so, and I find out he was my cousin's grandkid.

So this was my plan. Create a private family only facebook group and invite my family that I was in contact with asking them to contact the ones they were in contact with, and so on. We have a few cousin's that we have always referred to as the lost ones, as they were taken away from the family through divorces. We have since found every single lost one. With the family page, I planned a reunion, making polls to discover what weekend each year was best for the entire family. Finally in 2014 we had the biggest reunion we have had in my life time and only about 1/4 of everyone was able to make it. And I talked my friend who is a professional photographer to come and take photos for us. She was awesome didn't charge me, and sold the images on DVD for $10 to cover her costs, nearly everyone wanted one.

(photo credit to my good friend Jan) (The cabin in the corner my ancestor built in 1816)

I organized a silent auction to raise money to pay for the next years reunion. Because even though we do a pitch-in, there is still costs involved in renting a location to hold all of us. The next year we did a different location (because there was debate on where to have it the first year so we originally plan to swap every other year the location) Not as many people turn out. But different ones did that the previous year. Through my family research I discovered that our ancestor build a cabin in 1816 that was donated to the park department in 1936 and was sitting in a local park. I also found out I could rent it. So that is what I did.

So last year the family decided together after everyone saying they liked it better at the location I choose to begin with, to keep it there. Which lets be honest is a better location for a family reunion, our ancestor was the 3rd person to buy land off the government when Indiana became a state, and the house he built for his wife and 16 children they raised in that cabin couldn't be more fitting of a place for our family reunion.

So this is the 4th year I have ran our reunion, and I am a freebie queen. I watch coupon codes and have gotten a ton of stuff for free all I have had to do is pay for the shipping for this years reunion. Here is a photo of a few of those items. I have a whole tote full of stuff I have gotten free for the reunion.

I am really looking forward to this years reunion, not only because of all the cool personalized stuff from previous reunions photos I had made but this year I have a good camera and have taken up photography. I have a tripod and a remote shutter so I will be able to set up the shot then get in it. Family means everything to me. We all don't always get along, and man I hate when two of them are not getting along and they try to drag me into it, but at the end of the day they are family and I love my family. The good, the bad, the beautiful, the ugly. It doesn't matter at the end of the day what troubles on has, family is there, family loves unconditionally even when they don't like a person's choices or behavior.