Rhoades Reunion - Part 1

After a whole entire year of planning, the time had finally come . . . August 18-22, 2016, was our Richard & Eunice Rhoades family reunion.  We have 251 living members and 223 were able to be there!  We had it at the Oregon Christian Convention Conference and Retreat Center in Turner, Oregon.  It was the perfect size for us.

Of course, 3 of the days were supposed to be 100+ degrees!!  And, no air conditioning!!  As far as I know though, we all lived through it :)

There is a creek that runs along the property edge.  It was great for tubing and swimming.  It was the first place many people went to as soon as they got there!

We began our reunion with an easy meal of Papa Murphy's pizza . . . not that feeding over 200 people is easy with any meal!  This meal was a "volunteer" meal, as far as who helped to serve it.  The rest of the meals were all planned with a "head cook" and groups made up.  We each only had to serve one time during the reunion.

Our first planned "game" was red rover.  Tim & Leona's family led it.

Dad enjoyed watching from his camp chair.

After the game, our store opened for the first time.  The kids could hardly contain themselves while waiting!!  Here's the view looking out at the line-up.

And here's the view of them from the outside, looking at the store.

The first cashiers, ready to take money.

Friday morning Rick & Kathy's family organized a mile race.  They had different age categories and they gave prizes to the winners after our auction Friday night.

A bunch of the guys cooking hamburgers and hotdogs for Friday's lunch.

I'm pretty bad at getting pictures of much of anything.  Friday afternoon Nathaniel and Sally led a game of Kiddie Pool Kickball.  Google it and watch a Youtube video if you haven't heard of it.  It was super fun to watch . . . and with it being sooo hot, I think everyone who played was happy to get wet.

Friday evening we had an auction to help pay for our food.  Many of the family donated lots of neat things and it was a great success!  Justin was our auctioneer and Kevin, Kent and Chad helped out.  They did a great job!  We also had a couple tables of small things that were priced that we could buy outright.  There was a building that we didn't need for anything else, so we were able to set up the auction and just lock it up.  It was super hot in there!

Our tables set up with small, priced items.

More pictures with our auction items.

I took these pictures early and there were several more nice baskets brought in later that had to be kept cool.

A few pictures while we were waiting for the auction to begin.

This auction was sooo fun!  I never dreamed it would be so successful.  I hadn't been to an auction since I was probably less than 10 years old.

I guess I better end this first part here.  More to come on the rest of the reunion.