Lowe Family Reunion 2016

When scheduling our RV road trip back in April, I was happy that our Lowe family reunion could coincide with when we were in the Niagara Falls area. I have about 13 cousins on my dad’s side of the family (my dad was one of 6 siblings), and many of my cousins now have kids that are close to my kids ages. My dad grew up in Rochester, NY, so I have several cousins still living in the area.

My cousin Tim and his wife Christina hosted the reunion at their home in Fairport, NY. We parked our RV in their drive way for the weekend and plugged into their basement outlet!

Danielle and Ryan

The reunion was Friday night through Sunday and we really did not tire of one another. When we arrived at 5pm on Friday, the party was already started. Cousins from MN, Houston, Dallas (and now NYC!) were already there. 

Cousin Tim and Cousin Betsy.

Fay and Rex were delighted beyond description when they walked into Tim’s house and saw Minecraft, split-screen, playing on a gaming console (with about 5 kids already on the couch). They had gone a whole 2 days without Minecraft or their devices, and they let a few people know how deprived they were. 

Friday night was spent eating pizza, drinking wine and catching up on everyone’s lives.The kids played some Minecraft and also some games in the back yard. 

I got to meet a couple kids that I have never met before...

Signe winning against a constrained breakfast!

Greta’s baby, Signe won "Best eating disaster while still remaining cute".

And Betsy’s tins Gus (winner: most photos taken of a child in a toy ball) and Susie (winner: most reliable hugger)

On Saturday, we had a lazy morning at the house and then took a walk to a nearby playground. The kids played really well together. Rex had a moment, which I think was a pretty big life lesson for him. He was on top of a climbing wall on the playground equipment and he asked his older boy cousins if they wanted him to jump! They said yes and proceeded to watch. As Rex tells it, he changed his mind and was scared to jump, but felt like he had to follow through. He ended up jumping and crying and was just completely overwhelmed with what had happened. I was glad he wasn’t hurt and tried to let him know that there are ways to back out of a tough guy stunt like that. 

We also had a great moment when there were 3 people taking pictures of the exact same moment and one person taking a video. Save to assume this reunion has been captured on film.

After the playground, we walked along the Erie Canal to the village center of Fairport and had lunch. Rex saw a sign along the way explaining how awful it is to feed bread to ducks. The last reason of 4 was one that would cause the ducks not to migrate and likely die! Rex became very distressed because there was a woman and her child nearby, feeding the ducks. He insisted that I tell her she was endangering their lives and had to stop. I had a hard time explaining to Rex why I couldn’t do that, but luckily, my cousin Eric jumped in with an analogy about bread being a duck’s cupcake. Can’t eat too much, but once in a while won’t kill them. 

After lunch, we walked home, had some more drinks, played some more backyard games and ate a few meatballs. On the final morning I got to go for a run along the Erie Canal with Christina, before heading out in our RV for a day’s drive. 

I had so much fun at the reunion. My cousins are smart, fun, kind, and engaging. I could spend countless weekends visiting with them. I’m excited to come away from the weekend with an invitation to visit a cousin in Germany and a proposal of buying a Catamaran sail boat and caravanning down the coast with another cousin. Both sound enticing!

Next Up: RV Life Explained!