7-6-18 –7-8-18 DeVries Family Reunion

We pulled into Harborage Marina in Boyne City to be close to the Reunion Festivities.  Cindy did an amazing job setting this whole thing up.  Of course, Dave and the rest of her family pulled their weight too.

For those of you who are not familiar with our situation with the DeVries family, here’s a quick explanation.  We are not blood relatives but for 40 years we have been accepted into this family and have been made part of the family.  We feel so blessed that they included us in on the Family Reunion.

Friday night was a loose cocktails and dinner at the Forty Acres Tavern at the base of Boyne Mountain. It was our first time seeing many of the family in years.  Just outside the Tavern, they have smores for anyone who wants to come.  They even would toast your marshmallow for you.  What a nice little thing to do for guests.

 

Saturday was a big day.  We started off with beach day at Whiting Park.  It was a perfect beach day!  Cindy threw it out there to bring any beach/water toys games to share with everyone.  They brought their Kayaks. We have our paddle boards, but didn’t really want to deflate and re-inflate them, so in our true quirky fashion…  We strapped them together and towed them behind the dinghy as we made our several-mile trek to the park.  We no sooner got going when the boards got caught in our wake and flipped over.  Of course, this happens when there is a boat close by watching our every move.  We wrangled them to the side of the dinghy and got them flipped back over, laughing the whole time.  The other boater was laughing at us too.  Can’t blame him.  We got a lot of stares from other boaters, but we succeeded in our trek. We were so glad we did because someone was on the boards almost all day.  Even 81 year-old Grandma Abby sat on the front while Nikki paddled her around.  Lots of swimming, playing games and water sports.  Dave and kids set up tents for a shaded food area and brought grills coolers etc.  I don’t think there was even a hotdog left at the end of the day.

Saturday evening, we all cleaned up and put on nice clothes and met at the bottom of the Boyne Mountain ski hill. They had drinks and appetizers and a buffet dinner.  All was nicely done and delicious.  Cindy made bags for us all.  In it was family tradition things, like Cigars (Grandpa DeVries sold them), Meringue Cookies, Chocolate Letters, Recipe for the Cranberry pudding with hard sauce.  Well done Cindy! The boys had a cigar table and were being quite silly.  It was a wonderful evening of food and family.

Just when you think it’s over, Cindy provided breakfast for anyone who wanted to come.  Everyone brought something to add to the egg dishes she made.  We saved Abby Whiteford by bringing an urn of strong Starbucks coffee.  Everyone started to head home.  Scott went back to the boat to do some cleaning and I stayed for several hours and did laundry and blogged.  It was such a treat to have fast internet!

We pumped out, filled with water, did a grocery run and were ready to leave the next morning.

We said our good byes to the Whitefords and Wolfes.

What a fun well planned weekend!  Thank you all for making us feel welcome and a part of the family. We truly treasure our relationship with all of you.

Thanks for reading,

Karen and Scott

m/v Last Call

Unique Random Photo of The Day: