More Gabrielsens Than You Can Shake a Stick At

There is no more quintessential summer activity than the family reunion.

In our case, we reuned 80 of the living progency of my grandparents, Lyman C. and Erma D. Gabrielsen.  Hat tip to Ellen Gabrielsen King for creating the family banner, that shows how grandpa signed documents.

While many--probably most--of the attendees were not actually Gabrielsens in name, they are all tied to that builder of houses from Logan.

Of course, there were standard reunion things:  food,

facepainting (and over 30 glitter tattoos! You know who you are...),

and catching up on kids, grandkids and retirement investment strategies.

But here is the real treasure of the day: starting with the first presidency of the clan, the most veteran generation, the Grandes Dames of the family:

They have passed the torch to the next generation--the cousins--and we all like each other.

Here is the next generation--this is the table of teenagers who all got to know each other a little bit better,

and here is the bunch that is learning that family reunions are pretty cool.

And that's how families go, handing down from generation to generation.  We're on the right path.

And now, random shots from the day:

James and Ashton

 

Jake, Lanae and two of three kids

 

Eric and Alex

 

 Leslie and Will

 Ken and Kay (big shout out to this blog's most faithful and enthusiastic reader, Kay)

 Ben and Julia

Al and Karleen--organizers and motive forces of this year's gathering--catching up with Jess.

  

 

Everyone had a good time sharing stories and catching up,

even people who already knew each other.

And lots of desserts meant that a good time was had by all.

Thanks to Al and Karleen for herding these cats together.  We missed all of you who couldn't be there.  Let's do it again, soon.

Things We Didn't Tell Our Mothers

On every adventure there are close calls that are probably best left out of the story when you are telling Mom about it.  Here are a few.  

Spoiler alert: no muggings.  We were not mugged in Philly.  Or anywhere else. 

Yet.

Getting shot at--It was the night of July 4th, and we'd been in Philly a week.  At 2 am we were both awakened by a loud noise.  I wandered around the apartment and didn't find anything.  Next day I was pounding in loose nails on the veranda and found this:

45-caliber, copper-jacket, most frequently used in automatic weapons.  Some holiday celebrant had shot it into the air.  It came down on our deck.  I'm thinking of making it into a necklace.  Or gaging my ear with it.

Ticks--What with Lyme disease and all, the east cost is swimming with stories of ticks.  In two years I pulled two out of me, and about a half dozen out of other people.  Not counting the hundreds brushed off clothes.  No lyme disease yet;  I wouldn't mind it if it were Key Lime disease...

Cockroaches--for being in the urban center of Philly, we were remarkably pest-free.  We had a pest-control guy come every month and keep us pretty clean.  But the first month we were there, I found a fitty-cent-piece-sized cockroach on its back.  Sure it was dead, I bent over and picked it up.  It turned out not to be dead, but I didn't want to drop it and let it get away. It squirmed.

The dungeon basement--it was a 100-year-old apartment originally designed with a boiler and steam heat.  That all got replaced with gas furnaces later, but the unlit pit with the boiler in it was still in place.  This is where we did our laundry.

It is the stuff of Nightstalker plots...

Crime--not too much to report here.  Our actual corner was pretty crime-free, according to the Philly Crimespot app, but the most predictable location for fights, shootings and stabbings was about a block away in front of a bar so basic that it had no name.  It was just a bar.  With lots of drunken violence. The Philly newspaper calls it a "nuisance bar."

Yep.

Also, a couple of blocks the other way was a notorious drug alley where I saw my first daylight drug deal, just driving by.  

And to avoid standing out in the neighborhood in my white shirt and tie, I would change into "traveling clothes" whenever I would walk over to take the Ell to the train station.  I classify this as paranoia and not a true near-miss, because it wasn't really that dangerous.

This is not my actual disguise. 

As far as you know.

There were some other close calls with bedbugs, and strange people, and drunks passed out on the church steps, but as big urban centers go, Philly is all right with us. And we would gladly go back and do it all again.

Out of Chaos, Blogs

We arrived back in Utah this week.

Although we managed to get out of town unmugged, we are not entirely unscathed by the moving process.

Given the trauma of ending jobs, and moving, and moving our kids, and saying goodbye to wonderful friends, and touring the country, and starting a new job, we have a touch of PTSD and a plethora of chaos.

But I finally found the cable needed to download from my camera, and discovered a few minutes to collect my thoughts.

I'll be posting up pieces of the last 10 weeks in a jumble of blogs that may not be entirely chronologically nor thematically in order.

There is a youth conference, and EPIC! road trip, farewell parties, welcome home parties, packing moving, family reunions, etc.  

Yes, I like order.

But if Philly has taught me anything, it is that order may not be the highest virtue.

So don't try to make sense of the order of the next blogs.  Just keep your arms and legs safely inside the vehicle and join me in embracing your inner chaos.