The Large Family I Never Had

We adventured to Fontana Village in Fontana Dam, NC this weekend for the Taranto Family Reunion. The Taranto's were Philip's great great grandparents and they had 11 kids. As a result of this Philip has quite a large extended family on his mother's side and every two years they get together in different parts of the country for a very large reunion. This year we headed to the mountains of NC to join 100+ other family members. This was my first visit to the family reunion since the last one was only a few months after we got married.

On our way in we stopped a few galleries in Waynesville and Bryson City to shop. Momma Sara (mother in-law) bought some fancy yarn for me and is knitting me a gorgeous shrug sweater. We also picked up some baby gifts for the many upcoming baby showers and I got a new wallet!

We arrived at camp after creeping up the VERY windy and twisty mountain (12 miles) in the dark at around 10 PM. We were welcomed by many family members and new faces (for me!).

Reunion weekend went something like this:
Breakfast, Family meeting, Pontoon boating, tubing, cook out (that was delicious), nap, dinner, hang out, spend time with Grandma, Boya Brunch (sephardic food the is yeast dough filled with spinach and/or potato and cheese!) and off we went back home and down the mountain again.

A few highlights.
Boating was a blast! The boat we originally took out didnt sound right so we took it back and ended up with this large fancy pontoon boat that didnt have a ladder. We didnt realize this until we all jumped into the lake and couldnt get back into the boat. We also happened to get the rope from the tube stuck in the motor. This made for many laughs! We had two 3 yaer old twin boys on our boat and they were precious. One of the boys fell asleep leaning over the edge of the boat and his hair was blowing in the wind. We had a great day on the boat and made it home safely thanks to our captain. Note: The Fontana Dam is the highest dam in the NC mountains so our view was amazing!

On the way home from Fontana Village we stopped in Cherokee and made a visit to Harrah's Casino. I could've done without this stop. I can't stand gambling and casino's. The place reeked of smoke. I now know why our economy is in such bad shape. We also stopped in Hendersonville to see the galleries and shops which was a much more pleasant visit. Hendersonville was celebrating their 49th Annual Art Walk in downtown Hendersonville and we got to see all of the amazing artists work displayed on the streets.

We had a great weekend with the family and were so thankful that we had the opportunity to attend this year. I really enjoyed meeting everyone and look forward to the next reunion in 2010!