Family noise

As I’m looking over the pictures from the Kuehner Reunion at our farm Saturday, I’m just not sure how to describe it. I mean, how do you try to explain to someone just how cool it is to have your family over for a full day to just share some laughs and have a good time?

The morning started out with rain, of course! As I was standing in our living room looking out into the yard, all I could do was to just give out a heavy sigh and try not to worry about it. Daryl had just graded the driveway again Friday night, and now there was a pretty good water stream heading south and taking the gravel with it. But I thought, we had the Roadhouse to hang out in if we wanted and I’m sure that it was going to be fine. Anyway at this point, it had to work if we needed it. But about an hour before anyone started to come, the rain stopped and the only thing left was wet ground. OK, seriously not a big deal and I’ll take some mud and wet grass over rain. As Daryl’s family started to show up, at that point I realized that it could even pour outside today and it wouldn’t make any difference. His family was just ready to hang out with each other and have a good time. (but secretly I was keeping my fingers crossed that the rain was done!) After a huge dinner, everyone went outside to see what the weather was going to do. It did lightly rain a couple of times during the day, but nothing too major. The day was filled with basketball games, bean bags, trampoline, baseball, Polish skiing, ping pong, and a scavenger hunt.

Games of Polish skiing

And when it was a little too wet outside, William brought the Wii into the roadhouse for the kids to play. During the day I took time to step back and just listen to ‘noise’ of the farm and I thought to myself just how cool that was. I mean there wasn’t anything fancy about the day, but with both of Daryl’s parents gone, it seems harder and harder to get everyone together. So for one day in the year, all his brothers and sisters, nieces and nephews, and great nieces and nephews try to come together to the home farm. When I was just standing there listening, I could hear kids chasing the chickens, other kids laughing on the trampoline, a couple little girls running around with our little kitty Pepper, a pretty competitive basketball game going on, and the peacocks screaming with all the noise in the farm yard.  It was pretty cool to be honest. And as it got to the later part of the afternoon, the next thing on the agenda was a scavenger hunt. My sister helped me tons and pretty much organized this game for me. Once they were given their instructions, off we sent the kids to figure out the clues given to them. Both big and small kids went running to try to beat the other team. This gave us just enough time to get the Roadhouse somewhat picked up and also gave Daryl a little bit of time to get the hay wagon ready for a hay ride. He usually always gets a full crew to ride when he has the wagon ready in the yard. I laughed when I heard that a some of the really little kids only made it just a couple of yards down the road and were already taking a nap. It didn’t surprise me because they were playing pretty hard all day. After the hay ride, hot pizza and we warmed up the leftovers was ready for supper. Then we had to wait for it to get a little darker out for the sparklers and fireworks.  So if you weren’t too full from the root beer floats that we had for dessert, there were kids just wanting to make s’mores for someone at the campfire. The fireworks ended the night and after everyone helped picked up the Roadhouse and the tables and chairs were put away, everyone headed home with some very tired kids.

Good Job William on the fireworks

As I was walking to the house, I couldn’t help to think now how quiet the night was, and how I liked it so much better with all the noise. But after a quick bath, I found out that I was probably just as tired as those kids and headed to bed for the night. I was so tired that I left the towel on my wet hair and crawled into bed. In less than 2 minutes I think I fell asleep. I was hoping that my hair would be OK in the morning because we had to leave at 6:30 am or before on Sunday to go to a celebration for Daryl’s Aunt. But for now, I’m thinking that this was a successful day and it was a fun day.