When i was a child we used to have a family reunion every Juhannus. My dad's parents, his brothers and sisters, and us, the kids...cousins, got together at my aunt's cabin. We spent a day swimming, playing, going to sauna, eating, and just hanging out.
It has been several years since we have done it, but few of my cousins decided to plan a reunion again. The only difference was that our family had grown quite a bit, with all the cousins married and having the families of their own.
Since my parents had rented a place for us to spend a week together, we decided to use the same place for the reunion. It is an old school with plenty of room to roam around. It is by the lake, with two sauna's, few row boats, and a volley ball field. Great kitchen for cooking, and lots of dishes for serving.
We had over 120 of us there! We had such a great time, and decided that we will definetely need to do this again...hopefully in next few years.
It is such a blessing to belong to such a wonderful family!
Each of the main families (my dad's brothers and sisters) had a different color of shirt. We had a white, black, red, blue, green, yellow, and a purple family.
Saturday morning my mom, I, and my sister-in-laws made fish soup for 120 people. It was quite a project....but it was quite a miracle....we had plenty for all...even for seconds, and we even fed the missionaries next day.
Markus and Ville set the tables, chairs and benches on Saturday morning for everyone, and we set a special table for all the patriarchs and matriarchs of the family.
I love this photo of my dad, his brothers and sisters.
We had a tug-of-war. The people with still JÄkkö last name against everybody else. The "everyone else" beat JÄKKÖ's. Basically, they needed more boys for original family to carry on the name.
Kirsti with Ella or Anni...i need to double check with Kirsti. She says...Ella.
We also celebrated Eila's 70th birthday party. She flew to Finland from Australia, and then baked this cake for all of us.
