The Jankowiak Family Reunion was scheduled for Saturday afternoon and as long as I can remember my mom and dad have been the ones in charge. So, when I got off work on Friday I made the drive to Brenham to help get things ready. Emrie was already there...she and my dad had spent the day in Brenham.
Let me back up for a second...on Thursday, my great-aunt Bernice passed away. There was a visitation on Friday and then the funeral on Saturday. She was a neat lady. In fact, she told her daughters when she got to Heaven she was going to tell God we needed some rain. You gotta love her attitude. So, when I got into town I met my family at the funeral home for the visitation.
After the visitation, my mom, dad, Don and Kerri Woltmann (friends of my parents), Wanda (friend of my parents) and Emrie and I all drove out to the Latium Volunteer Fire Department. That's where we've had the reunion for the last several years. We peeled potatoes. Covered tables with paper, decorated and basically got everything set for the next day. It was a lot of work and we didn't get home til 12:30am. Emrie and I stayed at mom and dads.
The next morning was the funeral. We finished up there around 12:30pm and then had to hurry and get out to fire department for the reunion. It was supposed to start at 1pm. Thankfully, no one really shows up until 2ish. Mr. and Mrs. Woltmann had been there since early morning and had already taken care of a bunch of the busy work. Once we got there we set up for the raffle and started cooking. We served steak, sausage, potatoes, corn, green beans, sweet potatoes, sour kraut and bread. What can I say? We come from a long line of eaters. The food and fellowship was great. New this year was BINGO! I was the number caller. We also had a margarita machine. And, new for the kiddos, my cousin Debbie brought a huge donkey pinata. The kids beat the snot out of the poor donkey and had a blast doing it.
People started to clear out around 9pm...which meant it was time to clean up and pack up. I dont think I ever fully appreciated all the work my parents put into the reunion each year until I helped them from start to finish. We made it back to Bryan around 1am. We were pooped! As you can tell from the picture Emrie had a great but exhausting time too.
Thanks Mom and Dad for all you've done to keep the Jankowiak Reunion running strong for more than 30 years. Thanks Don and Kerri Woltmann - Mom and Dad are blessed to have such wonderful friends. Thank you EVERYONE who stayed to help clean up! It was another great year.
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