The Ties That Bind

My sister and I drove to Cincinnati last weekend for a Crusham family reunion. My mom was one of eight children, and two of her sisters are still alive. We treasure the opportunity to see these sweethearts as well as our many cousins. This time we had to stay in a hotel as the one cousin who normally puts us up (or perhaps I should say puts up with us) was out of town for a wedding. He may have planned it that way - ha! I chose a hotel by the airport, which isn't the most convenient location, but between a Reds home game, Oktoberfest, and a music festival the hotels close to the city were either booked or asking an extravagant rate for the rooms.

Friday night we met up with my dad's remaining sister Gloria and helped celebrate her 85th birthday. Two of her daughters were able to join us, and we had a nice dinner together. The evening ended when Gloria proclaimed, "My ass hurts, it's time to leave." We all busted out laughing! When I am old, I shall say whatever I please.

Saturday morning was a bit dreary, but that didn't stop us from heading to Findlay Market in downtown Cincinnati. Three of our cousins on my mom's side met us there. It is an historic market, with stalls and shops and pretty much anything you could imagine to eat. It was great to be able to sit outside and catch up with everyone's lives. My cousin's dog Bella is a Super Star at the market, and her cute face scored her lots of handouts.

Findlay Market

Bella

That night we were off to Price Hill Chili, where they have a nice back room suitable for the rowdy Crusham crowd. We had the same waitress as last year, and I told her I was surprised that we she hadn't quit after the last time we ate here. She just laughed. While we had a smaller turnout than last year (32), we were so surprised to see my mom's first cousin Dot Krauser and her sons with their wives. She is 97 years young, and is quite the firecracker. She had such a great time, and my aunts sure enjoyed visiting with her. She even had a Bloody Mary! I am inspired by these ladies who know how to age well.

Betty, Margie & Dot

Kathy, Betty, Margie & me

On Sunday we picked up Aunt Betty and Aunt Margie and took them out to lunch before going to the rehab center where Betty's husband Jack is undergoing therapy. It was nie to have one on one time with the aunts, and of course a visit to Cincinnati is never complete without seeing Uncle Jack. That night we met up with the cousins who had been out of town for a wedding - over dinner, what else? As I have always said, we eat our way through Cincinnati!

It was a fabulous visit, as always. It was fun to reminisce about the past while creating new memories for the future.

Party On

Our family has a lot of big events occurring in 2012. Jim's mom and dad celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary early this year, his older sister turns 60 later this year, his younger sister turns 50, and Katie turns 21. Add to that the fact that Katie graduated from college and Megan just received her master's degree, and you have plenty of reasons to party. (Jim also has received an amazing accolade, but we are not allowed to talk about it until the national announcement is made, so more on that later.) Since we are all spread out, we decided to have one big celebration over Memorial Day weekend.

My in-laws including Jim's sister and her husband drove down on Friday, and Katie flew in Friday night. Andy and Megan flew in on Saturday afternoon as Megan had her last class Saturday morning. Jim's younger sister and her fiance come over from Kansas City on Sunday morning as they had a wedding to attend on Saturday. We had a barbeque in our backyard Sunday afternoon, which of course had to be the hottest day of the year so far. Thank goodness it was breezy and fairly low humidity, as we were able to sit outside most of the day.

We hired Jim's motorcycle buddy, Jim Diaz, to take some photos before the party began. Jim is a professional photographer, and it has been many years since we had Wolterman family portraits taken. There are too many "exes" in that group shot to warrant keeping the old photo on the wall. Hopefully we will get a group shot where everyone has a decent expression on their face and their eyes open. We shall see.

The party was a great success, and it was wonderful to have Jim's whole family together. Frankly I don't know when my children will be together at the same time with their grandparents in the future. Jim's folks had not been here since Katie graduated from high school in 2009. So this weekend was all the more special because of that. The pictures will help us keep the memories alive.

And Then There Were Two

Today my uncle Mick died. He was the youngest of eight children in my mom's family. His twin brother Jim died in 2008. Now only Betty and Margie remain. We have not yet heard how Mick died, only that his son and daughter-in-law found him in his screened-in porch. It was cold in Cincinnati today, so it is strange that he was even out there. Mick was a very young nearly 82 year-old. He was active as a docent with the historical museum downtown, conducted tours of Cincinnati, and was instrumental (pardon the pun) in the restoration of the organ at historic (1842) Old St. Mary's Church. He also liked to travel, and was scheduled to go to Cancun next week with another widowed friend.

It is ironic because I have been scanning old photos and documents and putting them into my online family tree. But I have also been posting pictures up on Facebook for my family to enjoy. Last night I added photos from the 2008 and 2011 family reunions. Uncle Jim is in a couple of the ones from 2008, and Uncle Mick in some from 2011. One of my cousins commented that there were only the three siblings left. Now there are only two.

I don't know if I will be able to attend the funeral. We don't know the arrangements yet. But I know that Kathy cannot go with me due to her shoulder injury. She simply cannot ride in a car that long. Or miss physical therapy for that matter. I'll have to decide if I want to make the six hour drive by myself. But I would like the opportunity to see my aunts and my cousins. Because it is all too sad that it seems to take a funeral to get us all together. Even the family reunions don't see to do it anymore. RIP, Uncle Mick!

Aunt Betty, Uncle Mick & Aunt Margie

Vanilla Cupcake Recipe 3

So the second cupcake recipe the Explorers tried was also deemed inferior and, as such, not worthy of the title "Ultimate Vanilla Cupcake". On Sunday I baked the cupcakes from recipe number 3. I am really curious to see the results of this one. Stef provides us with a thorough report at the end of each testing period, going over the results of the survey we each complete after we have baked and tested the cupcakes. She must be wondering if it is possible to have 80% of us agree on a recipe. It is a tough challenge because everyone has different tastes, ovens, mixers, etc.

While we were at the family reunion in Cincinnati, the wife of one of my cousins brought along two different kinds of cupcakes. They looked like they came from a bakery! I did not try the vanilla cupcake as I believe she said she modified a box mix for that one. At any rate it wouldn't have mattered. As soon as I heard triple chocolate on the second cupcake, I made a beeline for that tray of cupcakes. Made from scratch, I can sum up these cupcakes in three words - Oh My God! They were amazing! I got her email address, and I am going to see if she will share her recipe with me. They were to die for, that's all I'm saying.

Will we find a vanilla recipe to die for? Stay tuned...

Family Fun

This weekend was the Crusham family reunion in Cincinnati. We could not leave for the trip until 5:30 Friday night since Jim had to be in Kirksville on a project all day. Knowing that he was already doing six hours of driving that day, I drank a lot of caffeine so I could handle the night driving by myself. I had done a Map Quest to the cousin's house where we would be staying, and it indicated that going over on I-70 through Indianapolis would save thirty minutes over going the I-64 route through Louisville. We always go I-64 because it is far less traveled, particularly by trucks, and is a much prettier drive than I-70. But since it was going to be mostly night driving and we were already arriving at my cousin's house after midnight due to the hour change, we decided to try I-70. Things were going pretty smoothly until we hit the middle of Indiana. Then there was road construction after road construction. And the truck drivers decided that seven miles away from where the left lane actually closed, everyone should already be staying in the right lane. One of them would sit in the left lane and block it. So for miles ahead, no one was in the left lane. Bottom line - the decision to save thirty minutes ended up costing us an hour and a half. We arrived at 1:30 a.m. Grrrr... Needless to say, we did not come home that route, and despite stopping two times made the return trip in 6 hours and 10 minutes.

We didn't need to get up early on Saturday, but I was awake at 7:00 anyway. Gene and Rita's eight year old grandson had his first football game of the season at noon, so Jim went with them to that. (Jim said it was a real hoot because there was a little cheer leading squad - eight year old girls dressed in cheer leading outfits - and parents in team booster chairs, etc.) Kathy, Skip and I headed to the park where the picnic was being held at 1:00. The weather was a little hot and humid, but the shelter had ceiling fans which helped a lot. There was a decent turnout for the reunion. Only three of the eight children in mom's family are still alive, which is why Kathy and I feel it is so important to go over when we can. I think the last reunion was three years ago, and since then the twin of the man in this picture has passed on. It was great to see everyone and catch up on what has been going on. My sister and I were just in Cincinnati in April but we only saw a handful of the relatives at that time.

On Sunday my cousin Gina (first cousin once removed!) and I met up to go to Spring Grove Cemetery to take pictures. No one else wanted to go out on a hot, sunny day and join us. Imagine that! Anyway, this cemetery is like the Bellefontaine Cemetery in St. Louis in that it contains the remains of the Who's Who of the city. Spring Grove is amazing, and may outdo our cemetery for the simple fact that the topography is so interesting. It is very hilly, and I lost count of how many small lakes were in it. Even though we were hot, dehydrated and bug-bitten, we had a great time there. I definitely will need to go back as we probably didn't see a fourth of the cemetery. After that I called to see what the rest of my family was up to, since they had been going to Newport on the Levee, a really cool shopping and dining location on the Kentucky side of the river. (Take note St. Louis - you could have an amazing destination like this!) They had eaten appetizers and had drinks outside along the river, so they weren't going to be ready to eat supper until 7 or so. Gina and I had not had lunch, so we decided to go to a little hole in the wall pizzeria. Her brother Tony came and joined us. We shared some great stories and some even better pizza. Yum!

Overall it was a great trip, but it was good to get home last night. The best ending to the evening came in the form of a phone call from Katie. It is the first time I have talked to her since she left for Seoul a week ago Saturday. She just called to ask quickly if I could get on skype, so we ended up finishing our conversation through the computer. God, I love technology! It was so great to be able to both see and talk to her. She is doing well, and loves Seoul. She is hoping that she will like Shanghai as much as she does her current home away from home. So far the only problem she has had is that she cannot buy an international sim card that will work in her phone (the brand new phone that the US Cellular folks assured me would work in Korea and China!) Katie does think that the problem only exists in Korea as they use a different type of card there. I hope she is right, because she will definitely need a phone for the four plus months she is in China. And I need her to have a phone while she is there. Phone home, KT!

It's All Relative

This weekend we are heading to Cincinnati with my sister and brother-in-law for a Crusham family reunion. This is my mom's side of the family, and only one brother and two sisters remain of the nine children grandma and grandpa had. Each time I go to a reunion it seems that there is one less person in the group pictures. And I always wonder what will happen to the reunions when the last three siblings pass on. It doesn't seem like our generation is all that interested in large family gatherings. My sister and I make the trek from St. Louis every time a reunion is held, but cousins who live there in town can't be bothered to stop in even for a brief period.

Speaking of pictures, one of the many boxes I inherited when my dad died contains old family photos. I am in the process of scanning them so that I can share them with my siblings and other interested relatives. I first divided the photos up by family and created a bag for each of my three siblings. They mostly contain photos of their own families that they shared with mom and dad throughout the years. That was the easy part. The stack of photos I knew we all might be interested in I decided to make digital rather than making prints the others might not even care to have around. Scanning is a slow and tedious process, particularly since I feel the need to clean most of the photos up with a photo editing program.

I am not quite sure what to do with the scanned pictures when I am done. There will be too many to email to my siblings, plus I want the photos somewhere that my cousins can access them if they want. My Picassa account, where I post photos from the Missouri Botanical Garden and other public venues, has nearly 200 photos in it. Once you hit 200 photos, you have to pay an annual fee. I have a Shutterfly account where I import photos that I want to reprint or put into photo books, but I'm not sure if others can access the account or if they have to join Shutterfly just to look at my photos. I also don't know if any of my photos could then be downloaded by my relatives. It sounds like I have some research to do, which will take more time. But as I said, it's all relative.

Family Heirlooms

Last weekend we attended the Wolterman Family Reunion at Lake Okoboji in Iowa. As I was already up in Iowa to be of assistance as my mother-in-law had surgery on her carotid artery, Jim drove up separately for the gala. We were excited about this year's reunion because first of all it was being held at a lake, so swimming and boating were involved. But secondly, one of Jim's cousins had sent out an email earlier indicating that she was no longer interested in keeping a dresser that had been Jim's great-grandparents. The email told the story (and included pictures!) of the dresser, and how it had been passed from generation to generation, often serving as a baby changing table - before they came up with all the fancy changing tables on the market today.

If you had an interest in the dresser, you simply had to let Kay know and she would bring the piece from her home in northern Illinois to the family reunion. If multiple people wanted the dresser, then all the names would be placed in a hat and a winner would be drawn. The caveat was that you had to be able to take the dresser home with you. No delivery would be available. Anyone who knows Jim and me, especially if they had seen our house and all the antiques, would know that we put our name in the hat. Besides the fact that this is an antique, we would have wanted it due to the provenance of the piece. Interestingly, Jim's dad was the first one to say he wanted it. Jim and I discussed this, and we decided that if our name was selected, we would give it to his dad. In my opinion, the piece should have been offered to the remaining siblings first.

Jim's folks were unable to attend the reunion, located two and a half hours from their home, due to Lorraine's surgery the previous week. As it turns out, that would make Jim and me the only Woltermans at the Wolterman reunion. Funny... None of our names were selected for the dresser, which went to a first cousin of Jim's up in Minnesota. We were disappointed, but we had a great time at the reunion that day. There was great conversation, good food, boating and swimming. The lodge in the state park was huge, with screened in windows, ceiling fans and loads of tables and chairs. In the evening we headed to a cousins lake home, and didn't get back to our hotel room in nearby Spencer until nearly midnight.

The next morning the cousin with the lake house hosted breakfast, and Jim took off on a jet ski with another cousin. Had I not showered and done my hair and make-up that morning, I would have gone along. I love to jet ski! When we arrived back at the lodge for lunch before heading home, we were told that the sisters (Jim's aunts) had decided that we should take the dresser because the person whose name was drawn was not even at the reunion, and her mom didn't have a car big enough to take it home nor was she at the lodge that day to make arrangements for the piece. So we loaded it up and took it back to Charles City with us. There may be some hard feelings from the one family member, but for now the piece is in my father-in-law's garage where he is anxious for the weather to cool so that he can restore it. It was meant to be!