Search Results for: blog family reunion success

Family Reunion Fun

Summer is primetime for family reunions. However, gathering multiple generations in the same place at the same time is only half the battle. Navigating the choppy waters of family dysfunction is where you really have to concentrate your efforts in order to make a summer get-together a raging success. The key to keeping everyone happy, especially when you are dealing with a wide range of ages, is to have as many distractions as possible. Games and entertainment can be the gateway to fun and frivolity at a family reunion. Try to find games that will appeal to the young and … Continue reading →

Spotlighting Family

Family reunion season is right around the corner. I’m reminded of this on a near daily basis, as my clan is responsible for helping host the upcoming summer shindig. Due to distance issues, I have been relegated to designing a scrapbook of the event. Basically, I will be the official photographer for the three-day extravaganza, and then my aunt and I will go through the images and figure out a way to craft organized layouts. In addition to documenting the actual party and subsequent activities, my mom wants the reunion scrapbook to also include family tree-type features. Her vision is … Continue reading →

Family Reunion Season

Love them or hate them, summer is prime time for family reunions. My extended clan gets together for a huge gathering every year. And by huge I mean an entire weekend full of family-friendly events, including picnics, sit down dinners, brunch buffets, scavenger hunts, golf outings, fishing derbies, bowling contests, and group picture-taking sessions that can take almost the entire afternoon. Both of my parents come from large families. My father is one of 10 children whose siblings each have at least four children each. Those kids went on to reproduce more than 50 additional children, and counting. Needless to … Continue reading →

Family Influence on Mental Health

I’ve been wondering and I’ve come to the conclusion that like so many other things in life, our mental health often represents our upbringing. I look at one side of my family. At my grandmother’s level of the family tree there were ten siblings. They were raised in a strong Catholic family, learned to help take care of one another (with ten of them, what more could you do), rely on one another, and be open and honest. Family was the focus of their lives. They had twelve people in a three bedroom house, so there was no choice but … Continue reading →

Young Man With Leukemia Gets Christmas Family Reunion

Here is a Christmas reunion story that should tug at your heart strings. A young man, who is fighting leukemia had one wish. He wanted his entire family to be together. It took considerable effort, but his family was able to make his wish come true. Dylan Jared Barrera was diagnosed with leukemia when he was 18 years old. Previous to this diagnosis, he was someone who never seemed to get sick. Suddenly, he was having constant headaches that did not go away after taking over-the-counter medicine. The doctor that his family went to realized that something serious was going … Continue reading →

Staying Connected With Family Newsletters

Families don’t seem to have the same connections today as they did in the past. I’m certain that we can blame our hurried 21st century lifestyle for a lot of this. However, if you are looking for a way to keep your family connected, you may want to consider beginning a family newsletter. Family newsletters typically include things such as current happenings (births, weddings, deaths, etc.), family recipes, photos, contact information, and upcoming events. It may also be fun to spotlight a different family member in each issue. Ask your family members to send you information they would like to … Continue reading →

Family Reunion Success

A family reunion that is focused on genealogy is different from a cousin get together. This type of family reunion usually spans several different generations and brings together distant branches of the family. A committee is usually formed to oversee this reunion and the next one so that the family reunion can operate smoothly. The first step to a successful family reunion is to start by planning the basics. You should determine a particular branch of the family to focus on, as well as what you want to cover at the reunion. This can be done at a meeting, but … Continue reading →

Planning an Extended Family Reunion

One of the things about genealogy is that it brings together distant family lines. One great thing to do with your genealogy research is to have a family reunion. There are family reunions that focus primarily on immediate family or a set of cousins and then there are family reunions that focus on generations of a family line. These types of family reunions function much differently. If you are interested in having a family reunion that focuses on generations of a family line, you should begin by seeing if there is a similar interest with others who have done the … Continue reading →

“You’re My What?”—Heartbreaking Parent/Child Reunion

While the media was busy covering Madonna’s latest unsuccessful attempt to adopt another child from Malawi, not much was made of another newsworthy (to me anyway) story that took place during the singer’s recent trip to the African nation. According to reports, the Material Mom made sure her three children–12-year-old Lourdes, 8-year-old Rocco, and 3-year-old David–accompanied her during her pilgrimage to Malawi last week. The entire family spent six days touring various poor African villages to promote Madonna’s Raising Malawi charity. (The charity helps feed, educate and provide medical care for some of Malawi’s more than 1 million orphans, half … Continue reading →

Family Reunions Important

Summer is coming up and if you’re like me that includes family reunions. This summer I am in charge of my husband’s family reunion. So I’ve decided to write a series of blogs on family reunions. These blogs will include organizing a family reunion, tips on having a successful family reunion, fun group games, things to do, and how to finance a family reunion. Family reunions are important. It used to be that most families lived within a few miles of each other. Children would grow up and marry someone who lived within the same town. Or parents would give … Continue reading →