Thursday, August 23, 2007

The 2007 Harrison Family Reunion

On the 11th of August this year, about 60 people from various families gathered together at “Birch Run Park” for the annual Harrison Family Reunion. Members of the Harrison, Learned, Gross, Lee and Rustem families were present to enjoy a time of fun games, fellowship and great food. We, the Sauvé family, are connected to the Harrisons by my Grandmother, Mildred Learned, who is one of the 5 children of Russell and Inez Harrison. She and Grandpa George Learned served on the mission field in Niger, Africa for 40 years and have been a great witness to and influence in the lives of us, the next generation.

As usual, arrival time was around noon and the food tables were quickly loaded with tasty dishes ranging from sides such as baked bean casserole, to sweet desserts including a sunflower shaped chocolate cake. Once thanks had been offered to the Lord by Grandpa Learned, we commenced doing our best to devour the occupants of the containers resting on the table. Our family’s main meal of “sloppy joes,” complimented by said “occupants of dishes on tables,” made for a scrumptiously full meal. In other words, we were stuffed!

Fortunately, the first activity planned did not require any physical labor since it was only a history quiz about the original Harrison couple, Russell and Inez, with questions such as “When were Russ and Inez married?, how many grandchildren and great-grandchildren do they have?” etc. The next game was an ingeniously fun way to test our spelling abilities. To begin, 4 or 5 teams of 5 each were established and each individual received two cards. Each card had one letter of the alphabet on it. When the organizer of the game called out a word or phrase each teams goal was to spell it correctly as fast as possible without anyone switching cards. This could result in some interesting combinations of reaching around each other to spell the word correctly.

After this came the ever present and ever popular balloon toss, was carried on to quite a distance by a few determined and skillful parties. Our next activity was much more difficult than it sounds. The winner would be whichever team could make the tallest structure out of mini marshmallows and toothpicks that would stand unaided, in 5 minutes. The winner’s tower wasn’t more than a foot and a half tall which demonstrates the difficulty of getting the things to stand up on their own.



(Josiah decided to make a marshmallow man instead of a tower)

In summary, the food and fellowship was wonderful and the games were a lot of fun. A great big thank you to the Rustem family for organizing everything this year. So long till next time!

Josh Sauvé