Mann Family Reunion 2009

Yep, it's official, I really am a Mann after all!

I just got back from my Mann Family Reunion. Every summer we have family reunion in McCall, Idaho - the first one was thirty-one years ago, the year my parents were engaged. McCall is two hours into the mountain from Boise and is on Payette Lake. It's not as big as say, Sun Valley, but I guess you would call it a resort town like that. It gets really crowded with snow skiers in the winter and with boaters in the summer. We had a cabin there for several years and some of my fondest memories are of this place. We've watched it change and grow over the years but it still has some of its staple places like this great little diner with a Jukebox called My Father's Place with the best fry sauce and milkshakes of my life. Also, every February they have the McCall Winter Carnival with ice sculptures. Payette Lake even has it's very own 'sea' monster, which I was proud to discover was on Wikipedia, named Sharlie.

On a side note about Sharlie, I remember when I was like five or six, and we all had hotel rooms at Shore Lodge and they had this sort of parade float looking rendition of Sharlie out in the water floating by the hotel boat dock with lights shining on it at night. One of the nights of reunion we were all crammed into one of the rooms watching Frankenstein on TV (thinking back, it was probably the Mel Brooks Young Frankenstein, but to a kid you don't get the comedy of that, its just creepy). I had to go and get something from the other room and I think I made my sister Torry and my cousin Heather come with me, but they left before me and I found myself alone in this dark room, unable to find the light or get the door open, listening to the groans of Frankenstein coming through the wall and looking at this (real-looking to me) float of Sharlie out on the dark waters. It seems so silly now, but that is still one of the most poignant and terrifying moments in my memory!

Anyway, family reunion...

Our favorite cliff jumping spot- me jumping in the yellow:

Swimming around rock islands:

Getting back on the tube after a tumble:

Brother Bug and I enjoying some delicious treats at Ice Cream Alley:

One of the random shots that my cousin's little girl Elle took while playing with my camera:

Mill Park Condominiums where we have stayed the last few years:

Shore Lodge hotel where we used to stay when I was a little kid and still go to for breakfast sometimes:

One last fond farewell to the lake until next year:

A few hours at my Grandma's farm before heading home:

So fun. My family is so great. We ski, we tube, we eat, we cliff jump, we jet ski, we eat, we hike, we play games, we watch movies, we enjoy each others company and, wait for it... we eat. Being on the water though, I just ache for it. I don't know if there is anything I love better than being on a boat, be it a speed boat, sailboat, houseboat or even a jet ski- there is nothing that compares with the spray of the water and the wind in my face. Another item that made the weekend enjoyable was the comments I kept receiving from my doting grandmother such as, 'what an attractive figure you have,' and, 'what a pretty girl you are.' Mind you, in her day what constituted an 'attractive figure' was far more shapely than is the current fashion, and also, her vision is not what it used to be. I appreciate the sentiments all the same though ;) What I am really excited for is next summer when my immediate family will all be there because my parents and two youngest brothers have missed it the last three years in a row while in South Africa (My brother Logan and my sister Torry and her family have been missing it as well, with not nearly as good of excuses, ahem, but they have all sworn to come next year). It'll be a good one. Sigh. Another beautiful summer weekend, come and gone.