Family . . . continued

As you know from my earlier post, last week we attended The Youngern Family Reunion which was held at Ruttger's Resort in Bemidji, MN.





Ruttger's is a historic resort which dates back to the 1930's. It consists of a of Lodge (which we stayed in) and also many lake-side cabins, some of which were the first cabins on Lake Bemidji. The grounds are beautiful with it's lush flowers, sandy beaches and panoramic views of the lake.








What would be a family reunion without the two people who started it all? My Grandpa Dale and Grandma Florence (Grammy Flo) were, of course, our guests of honor. Without these two, none of us would be here.

Of family's journey started loooong ago. Their love story is something out of a novel. It goes a little something like this . . .


Boy is a phenomenal high school basketball player and lives is South Dakota.
Boy's high school coach accepts a new coaching position in Grand Forks, ND.
Boy's coach can't coach a team without boy . . . so boy moves to Grand Forks with coach so he can play on his team.
Boy's coach moves across the street from Girl.
Boy meets Girl.
Girl thinks that Boy is over-confident and tells her friend that she can have him.
Boy eventually talks Girl into a date.
Boy and Girl fall in love.
Boy and Girl get married.
Boy enlists in the Army, becomes a Darby's Ranger, and heads off to war.
Girl goes to church every day to pray for Boy's safety.
Boy meets The Pope after a huge victory in WWII.
Boy truly believes that it was his Girl's praying that saved his life.
Boy returns from WWII a hero.
Boy and Girl have 6 daughters and live happily ever after.


**nobody can write a novel with this material. I've got dibs.

The Couple

The reunion started off on Wednesday night with a BBQ at my mom's cabin. There was to be no hamburgers and hot dogs at this BBQ. Chef Denny prepared Ribs and Walleye on the grill, along with incredible side dishes prepared by my mother, topped off with home-made brownies made from my Grandma Flo's recipe. Delicious.

The next morning we all enjoyed breakfast at the Lodge, and then headed off to the beach. That evening was the big family dinner with a talent show to follow . . . oh yeah, we do it up right!

This is my Aunt Judy. She is all kinds of Fabulous!

3 out of the 4 Bruschwein Boys

Scott, Mark and Mike

The 6 beautiful and talented Youngern daughters

(This is not in any age order . . . I am sure they would have wanted to specify this)

Terri, Judy, Margo, MaryDale, Jan and Nancy (my mom)

My sister Ali, and cousin Heidi Bruschwein

After our cocktail hour (every Youngern dinner starts out with an extensive Cocktail Hour), my Grandpa Dale started out the meal by welcoming everybody, and telling an "Ole and Lena" joke. This is tradition.

We feasted on Steak, Chicken, and Walleye. It was fantastic. Claire opted for just a dinner roll.

After dinner, we sat back to watch the many talents of the Youngern Grandchildren and Great-Grandchildren. My Ella started off the show with a BANG as she preformed a ballet number to "Pixie Dust". She nailed it.

She beamed as her audience roared with cheers! When we left to change into her next costume, she told me, "Mom, I love when people clap and cheer for me. That was my favorite part.".




Next, my cousin Katy and her son Elliot wowed the audience with his batting ability. Watch out Joe Mauer!

My Uncle Dean kept the performance going with a little stand-up comedy. He and Grandpa could do pretty well on the Stand-Up Tour!

My niece Daysha and cousin Lauren danced beautifully to a new version of Ave Maria

Then after a quick change, Daysha joined my Jocie and Ella for the "Country Kid" number. It was stinkin' adorable.

After her dance number, Jocie turned up the serious-factor and read the essay she wrote about her Great-Grandpa Dale. She wrote about his Ranger days in WWII which had won a Veteran's Day Essay contest last Fall.

When she finished reading, she got a standing ovation, loud cheers and soft tears from her audience . . . especially from the Man of Honor. So sweet.

After that we had a short mingling break before our big finish.

Terri and Grandpa

Claire needed a sand-toy break

How do you top an award-winning essay written by a Great-Granddaughter you may ask??

With Zumba.

That's right! My Cousin Brady's beautiful (Brazilian) wife Cristiane is a Zumba instructor. Her talent got some Youngerns off their seat to work off all the food they just ate. I kid you not.

As you could imagine, it was pretty fun to watch . . .

Work it, Todd.

I don't know what mom was doing, but it certainly wasn't Zumba.

Whatever it was, she made it look GOOD!

After the Zumba lesson, everyone was pretty reved up. What do Youngern's do when we are reved up? We turn on a little Michael Jackson and do The Thriller.

After all the dancing, we decided to go to the bar (weird).

My sister Jessie and her beau Jeremy.

We took over all the Bar games and played . . .

Darts

and Foosball

The Sisters

Needless to say, a little fun was had by all.

The next few days were spent at the beach.

Ruttger's is also the home of very tame ducks that love to be fed. This worked out very well for us since Claire LOVES ducks. If you ask Claire what the ducks says, she says, "Duck. Duck. Duck". Close enough.

Our beach days were full of tubbing and jet skiing . . .

building things in the sand . . .

lounging . . .

kayaking . . .

playing peek-a-boo . . .

more playing in the sand . . .

my cousin Hannah posed next to the Sand Kingdom she helped create

wake boarding . . .

pontooning . . .

more dancing . . .

boating . . .

water-skiing . . .

more jet skiing . . .

Hannah driving the pontoon 60 miles an hour . . .

. . . just kidding.

more sand building . . .

and just plain having a good time.


Because of Grammy's dementia, she wasn't able to be at all the events. But she did come to the ones that mattered, and I could tell she knew she was surrounded by love.

Grandpa Dale and Dean discussing the golf scores for the day

Denny and Dean

We held the Awards Ceremony on Saturday night, at the Bruschwein's cabin.

The Awards Ceremony usually only focuses on the Golf Tournement, but this year, my Grandpa decided to give a couple of shout-outs to the Chairman (my cousin, Mark Hansen)

and his Co-Chairwomen (my cousins Heidi and Heather)

Before handing out the Golf trophies, Grandpa read a golf poem witten by Arnold Palmer. Then he passed out a copy of that poem to each one of the golfers . . . a nice touch, I thought.

The speakers of the evening, my cousin Lauren and Aunt Jan

And the 3rd place team was . . . Scott and Mark Bruschwein!

The 2nd place team was . . . Carl and Todd!

they were a little excited

and proud!

The Medalist of the Tourney was . . . Mike Bruschwein!

Way to go, Mikey!

And (drum roll please), the champions of the 2010 Youngern Family Reunion Golf Tournement was . . .

Ali and Grandpa Dale (big shocker)

These two have dominated every family golf tournement thus far . . . nothing can stop this team!

The reunion was full of laughter, dancing, coacktails, music, beach dwelling, eating, and just being together. I love my family for it's many fassetts of awesomeness. Thanks for the memories and see you in two years!

Since we were in Bemidji, we had to go see Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox before we left.

I think it is a right of passage for every Minnesota kid to get their picture taken with these two.

Just one more stop was made before going back to Big Lake. One of our missions for the week was to get Jocie up on water skis. She tried so hard while at Ruttger's but just couldn't get it. My Uncle Jim insisted we bring Jocie to their lake place on Long Lake so we could get her up. We took him up on the offer!

There were many starts, many falls, many skiis that fell off . . .

After a few hours of trying, trying, trying, Jocie (and Jim) succeeded!

Yay Jocie!!! Your determanation has paid off once again!

It's gettin' deep . . .

I was just about to sit down and blog (more) about my beautiful family reunion, but something is goofy with the uploading process . . . so that will have to wait until another day.

I do want to share something I just read tonight in a book called, "The WHY Cafe" (John P. Streleckly). I guess this book might be categorized as a "self help" book. I didn't see myself reading a "self help" book (this early in my life, anyway), but Carl had received this book at a teaching conference and told me to read it when I had a chance. I kept putting it off, because it really didn't interest me very much.

After having nothing else to read (and still some summer left)I decided to delve in. I must admit, I thought it was a little weird/cheesy at first, and I caught myself rolling my eyes a time or two, but there were some phrases that caught my attention.

The book basically explains to it's readers that they need to do what truly makes them happy in life. The author tells a story of a man who is going on a vacation to "recharge his batteries" from his hectic everyday life. The man ends up getting lost in the middle of nowhere (told ya, kinda cheesy) and stumbles upon a Cafe. He ends up talking about some deep topics with the Cafe employees, and discovers some pretty profound things about his own life. The people in the Cafe tell him that he wouldn't need to go on vacation to "recharge his batteries" if he was already doing what he wanted to do on a daily basis. Couple of quotes that caught my attention . . .

"Life is a great story, John. It's just that some people don't realize they are the author (of their own life), and they can write it however they want."

"Eventually, my life, and the ways I want to fulfill it, became clear. Ironically, that was when I faced the most difficult challenge of all. When you weigh two choices, and one is living a life that is fulfilling, and the other is just living, you think the decision is simple.

It isn't.

Over time, I have observed that this is the place where most people end their journey. They peer through a hole in the fence, and can clearly see the life they would like to have, but for any number of reasons, they don't open the gate and walk into that life."

Wow.

Makes a person think.

Are you fulfilled? Am I fulfilled? Are we doing what we want to do?

- Deep thoughts,
by, Anne Adolphson.

Family

This is a sneak peak into the 2010 Youngern Family Reunion. We invaded Ruttger's Resort in Bemidji, MN and had a blast as we danced, ate, laughed, golfed, visited, water-skied, built sandcastles, sipped cocktails, grilled, and put on talent shows and awards ceremonies. These memories will be cherished by all, and not soon forgotten. I love you all.

gotta love the ghetto pool

They may not be glamorous, but these little pools have been a life savor on these hot and humid days! If we don't have time to go to the beach, I just fill these pools up with the hose in the morning, and after nap time, they are warmed up and ready for splashing!

just a little sip . . .

The beauty of these little pools is that Claire can easily walk in and out of her pool all by herself. If she has a couple of toys to play with, she is good-to-go for quite a while.

I love it because I don't have to pack up anything! No overflowing beach bags, cover-ups, life jackets, lawn chairs, or strollers required. Just a suit and some sun block and we are ready to go!

The girls each have their own pool to enjoy. Which means Ella can jump and splash all she wants without having to worry about Claire.

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Too bad we don't have a bigger pool for Jocie, since she is way too cool for these little ghetto pools. Oh well, she is more of a beach girl anyway!

Two more girlies turn 30

Happy Happy Birthday to Kristine and Beth, and welcome to Club 30! We helped celebrate the beginning of their momentous 3rd decade with drinks, dinner, and more drinks. We decided that 30 was just a number, and we felt much younger than that (yes Nicole, we know you ARE younger than that . . . ). We pushed our limits and decided to stay out much too late. Let me tell you, the age I felt that next morning from pure sleep deprivation was MUCH older than 31! But it was worth it! Thanks for the good times, ladies.

Nicole and Kristine

I Love you too, Chicken Fried Rice . . . oh, so good!