Crazy Canuck Reunion, Day 1: "Hey Mama, Welcome to the 60's!"

If you have ever heard the song from the musical Hairspray entitled "Hey Mama, Welcome to the 60's!" then you will understand what it is like to visit Grandma and Grandpa Fooks' house. Picture sinking your feet into the 2 inch deep avacado green shag carpet and perching on the extra-long gold-velvet couch in front of the amber-plastic wall of room-dividers. It doesn't get more retro than this.

Friday began with the "tour of Lethbridge", Lethbridge being the hometown and current residing place of G&G Fooks. We spent the morning touring the two homes that the Fooks family (my mother being one of them) grew up in and Normie (architect extraordinaire) designed. They were still in excellent condition, and may I say, still ahead of their time, design-wise. You got skills Normie!

That evening we all headed over to the beautiful neighborhood park for a family BBQ and games. We presented Georgia and Norm with a special memory scrapbook that we all contributed to (thanks Nicole for all the hard work). I think this was the best gift we could have given them. After they perused the family memories, we all signed it, yearbook-style.

Ella and her best-friend Nanna, a.k.a. my mom Lori

Grady already has Aunt Mallory wrapped around his cute little finger

Grant is in heaven with so many cousins to play with.

Here he is playing badminton with Daisy

No matter how hard I tried, and how much candy I bribed her with, I just couldn't keep Ella out of this puddle. Admitting my defeat, I decided I better at least snap a picture of her glee. Doesn't that smile just say, "Come on, mom, did you really think you could beat me in a test of wills? Aw, you did, didn't you? That's sweet."

The men and (and a few boys) played an extreme game of football, losing not just one, but two balls to the trees. Thank goodness Stephen is part monkey.

Watch Grant chug a whole 2-litre bottle of "fizzy"! Seriously, where is that kid's mother?!

Ella never met a cookie she didn't like

Nanna and Grady

This kid belongs on the cover of a magazine! And how about that photography?

Day 2 of the reunion wrapped up with the great fabric give away. Georgia has accumulated quite a stash over the years (think fabric-store quantities), and we all benefited from her, ahem, lack of self-control. It was a frantic race to see who could get the the good stuff before anyone else. In the end, after we all carted away bins and bins of the stuff, it still didn't look like we had made a dent in the collection. The church humanitarian fund is going to be very happy very soon.

Cousin Kaitlyn striking a pose amid the aftermath of the great fabric give-away

Thus endeth day 1.