Barnes Family Reunion 2011

Florence Oregon, beautiful sunshine, lots of fun, and wonderful people to share it with! Every summer the family gathers from the Barnes side. We: camp, play games, eat great food, dig clams, clean clams, pound clams, fry clams and cook them in chowder, go to the beach, shop in “Old Town,” have ice-cream cones, visit with each other, fly kites, collect shells & agates, build & enjoy what seems to be an endless campfire (thanks Posh & Pat for the wood), roast marshmallows, laugh, tell stories, sing songs, and the kids ride bikes endlessly etc. etc.

Though we are missing some families, spouses and so on this year, we did end up with a pretty good size crowd. I will try to name them in some kind of order…left to right starting in the back: Seth, Mackenzie, Jodee, Me & Graham, Todd, John, Anna, Paul (peeking out), Renae, Brian, Mindy, Hannah, Levi. Second row starting with Pat who has his arm around Cameron, Soozie, Daniel w/ Emmett, Jessica, Mike, Maggie, Sloan. Front row: Michelle w/ Hyrum & Lance, Sterling, Lucy, Carson, Royce, Wyatt, Julie, and Joe.

Being the 10th year of our reunion, Daniel and Jessica went to the efforts of making everyone t-shirts. They turned out great, saying “Barnes 10th Family Reunion.” They have a picture of the campground with tents, the Heceta Head lighthouse, & seagulls- they're perfect and hopefully we can all remember to wear them for years to come :)

Riding bikes is one of the kids’ favorite things to do

The week ended up being gorgeous as far as weather goes, with bright sunshine every day. We managed to snap a quick family picture down at the beach. Fun moments with the cousins Singing songs with Gramma Coloring time Jessica & Emmett, too cute. Hooping time! The kids had fun with all the hoops and did it many times during the week- this is the only picture I managed to get, but it’s a great one! This is Cameron showing off his skills :)

Uncle Seth leading a football game, even Graham got in on the action for a bit.

“The Brothers”- John, Pat, and Mike (if only we could photo-shop Jim in there). Their older sister, Dee, came up to visit for bit too- it was great to see her.

Having connections is always a good thing. With Levi in the Coast Guard he was able to arrange a personal tour of the Florence Coast Guard Station for all the kiddos. The best part of course being the tour of one of their boats.

Carson & Graham “driving” the rescue boat

Lucy & Graham at the inside driving post. This boat was pretty dang cool to see- it is made with the ability to completely capsize and it will turn itself right side up within 8 seconds-amazing stuff!

We had a game night for the whole crowd. We played “name that relative”-where you had to match names to old pictures of family members up to 5 generations back…somehow Jessica was able to get 3rd place on that one! Amazing! Our next game was “how many”- where you had to guess the number of a certain object in a jar and if you’re the closest you got to keep the jar and it’s contents (tootsie rolls, army men, gumballs, clothespins etc). And our last game was the “minute to win it- cookie face” game- where you place an oreo on your forehead and then only using the muscles in your face move it down into your mouth- this one provided lots of laughs- only a few talented folks were successful but we all had fun trying.

We had our annual “Clam Dig” on Saturday (I forgot to take the camera along). We had a great time getting wet & muddy while filling our buckets with clams. We got a total of about 8.5 limits this year- a “limit” is 36 clams, which means we dug over 300 clams!! Now that’s a lot of clams!! We had a contest this year of who could dig the most in 5 minutes- Jodee & Joe won it digging 7 clams in five minutes- woohooo! They were declared, “The Clam dig Kings”- but had to take turns wearing the highly sought after “Clam Dig King” hat. Some “veteran” clam diggers (Posh (Mike)- who would win it every time if he competed because he truly is the all time master of clam digging) honorably bowed out of the competition to give others a shot.

Here’s the crew “cleaning” the clams. Get a load of Daniel’s face…this is my feeling about cleaning clams exactly- I am willing to do all other jobs- but this one I avoid :) Frying up the clams, this is the best job because you get to “test” them as you go- to “make sure” they’re being cooked correctly…quality control- a very serious responsibility…yuumm-O!

We spent the evening on the beach at Heceta Head Light House on Saturday- it was gorgeous!

Lance & Graham got into throwing rocks…sometimes bigger than they are! Carson found some treasures! A cute pose of Lucy. I had to include this picture because of the kite in the background. Wyatt bought that kite and it turned out to be a bit of a mystery as to how it was supposed to fly. This is proof that it did actually fly…for a bit anyway :) Below is most of us together on the beach…such good times, *sigh*
Can’t leave without a picture with Smokey…see you next year buddy! Such a great time with such great people, thanks to everyone for making it what it is…pure enjoyment!