Penner Family Reunion 2010

We have family reunions every year on the Penner side. Every other year is the big reunion with my aunts, uncles and cousins, then on the off years we have a reunion with just my siblings' families and my parents. This was an off year, so my immediate family went camping in Greenfield, which is about 30 minutes southeast of Monterey. It was really nice to have all of the family together again. Mom and Dad came from Utah along with Todd's family and Amber's family. The California bunch consisted of Kevin coming from San Diego, Joel's family from San Jose, Cherie's family from Lincoln and, of course, we came from Elk Grove. We stayed for two nights and three days.

This is Friday night where we had a family dance and fun around the campfire.


Cherie and Ken's family were just getting over a very bad flu and were quarantined off a ways from the group, in the "unclean" section, just in case they were still contagious. Luckily, I don't think anyone else caught it, though Cherie's ended up turning into pneumonia after the trip.


Saturday was a fun day of games for the kids and visiting and looking at the photo albums that Amber has compiled for Mom and Dad. That afternoon we went to the river in the campsite and the kids had a great time wading and exploring with Lex and Elaina.

Saturday night we had games: The Kevin game (trying to see how many Kevinisms we could name, such as Fetcher, Julio, schneikies, jib-janglement, etc.), naming as many Disney characters as we could (which I won, some say because Cherie was under the weather and not in full game form, I would challenge her to a rematch sometime), and chubby bunny for the kids (stuffing as many marshmellows in your mouth as possible). We ended the night we an impromtu sing-along by the fire. Good times.

Sunday was goodbye day but we had a family testimony meeting before we parted ways. I'm very grateful to have been born into such a family with strong testimonies of the restored gospel. Their examples strengthen me and the joy that comes from knowing we can be together in the eternities is so comforting to me. I love my family so much.
The Penner Bunch:

Top row: Camille, Bryan, Kevin, Amber, Elaina, Cory, Mom (Carol), Dad (Gary), Nathan, Todd, Joel, Kirsten, Nicole, Kate, Ken, Cherie.
Second Row: Cameron, Andrew, Gherine, Gabriella, Elizabeth, Jordan, Braden, Sarah, Colby.
Bottom Row: Rachel, Ethan, Natalie, Lex, Nick, Ben, Ethan, Sam.