[speaker002:] well this is an unusual topic what do you think about it
[speaker001:] yeah I at first I it took eight times to find you you so I told my husband um you know what should I say and then he reminded me but um um his in his family uh what they usually do on his dad's side his mom or um the aunts will send out little postcards like two or three weeks before reminding everyone where the where to meet and you know just to bring anything and so they just notify everyone by mail and then they just meet at like a park or something to have like a a short um or a small um dinner type thing
[speaker002:] well that sounds great Ellen how far away do they come from right
[speaker001:] um they come from well they all meet in Portland and they come as far as oh Seattle and and sometimes we've gone and we were from we were living in Utah at the time
[speaker002:] oh okay
[speaker001:] and um but his his dad's family is all around the area and his mom's side of the family they all uh have their family reunions in southern Utah and people would come from Seattle to there and um let's see Nevada and in that area Washington and Nevada to southern Utah and they would um assign a different person each time they had a reunion they'd assign a different person to be in charge of notifying everybody
[speaker002:] oh okay that makes sense nobody's out of a lot of trouble more than once
[speaker001:] yeah yeah and the people who are down there like they'll assign one person in the Utah area one person in the Washington area and that person can call you know beforehand and just make sure everyone knows too
[speaker002:] um-hum
[speaker001:] and then they just sort of do like a little program or you know something like that so that everyone's sort of involved
[speaker002:] yeah that's interesting you sound like you've had a lot of experience with this then
[speaker001:] oh well that's my husband's side and my mom's my mom's or my family family uh we we all live in southern California so we just have to either call or give a formal invite and we're all there so
[speaker002:] southern California's still pretty large
[speaker001:] yeah well I mean LA Orange County area I mean everyone's you know mostly not farther than an hour away
[speaker002:] I see and yeah well my experience um has been limited pretty much lately to my mother's side of the family uh
[speaker001:] uh-huh
[speaker002:] years ago there was a big dispute on my dad's side and uh they haven't had a reunion since then they just show up at funerals and weddings
[speaker001:] oh
[speaker002:] it was pretty serious and lot of yelling and all that but anyway my mother's side
[speaker001:] wow
[speaker002:] we had our our first real reunion that I've ever gone to last summer and they had people come in from out of town and they took some some rooms down at a Holiday Inn and uh they had some activity they had a nice dinner planned and all of that stuff and people got up and talked about various parts of the family tree and you know a lot of that sort of thing since it was the first one that we'd had the you you could do that once now next time we have one we'll have to think of something more creative to do
[speaker001:] well you know that's interesting because one thing that always brings to my uh husband's mother's side together is um they talk about the genealogy of the family tree every time and everyone inevitably everyone is just very interested and and they always have you know two or three new ones to add to the list you know someone's been born or someone passed away or you know something like that and so everyone has to update their little
[speaker002:] oh well have have you do you have an interest in genealogy
[speaker001:] books or whatever um uh I do but not to very much compared to my mother-in-law
[speaker002:] not a passion huh  um I suspect we'll do quite a bit more genealogy and I I suspect we will do more of it um I found out some about some of the relatives I didn't you know I I didn't even know their names some of the
[speaker001:] oh
[speaker002:] two or three generations back and some of the aunts and uncles and uh there's a lot of things there you have to stop they're really kind of fascinating I found out my grandmother was one of a twin and we don't even know where the twin
[speaker001:] oh
[speaker002:] we have virtually no no background on on her on the twin
[speaker001:] really is that your your grandma's own sibling and she
[speaker002:] uh my grandmother's uh sister who would be somewhere in in West Virginia I'm sure she's you know dead now because my grandmother died in about twenty years ago
[speaker001:] oh I see oh so
[speaker002:] I'm I'm quite a bit I'm probably a lot older than you are um
[speaker001:] well maybe um they just moved away and then just sort of lost contact and
[speaker002:] I don't know