The Mini Family Reunion

I would like to report that we officially survived the mini family reunion we hosted at our place for a week.  Although it wasn't our first choice to host a small family reunion during a pandemic (!), the daughter wanted to see her son and grand daughter whom she hadn't seen since the baby was born plus she wanted to bring her new boyfriend that she may end up marrying to meet her dad so small family reunion at our place it was...

The logic behind the trip was that it would save all involved a lot of money (free lodging at our house, free food of course, a free car to use, cheap flights to Vegas from their places on the east and west coasts, lots of free entertainment options...basically everything they would have had to pay for if they all decided to meet up on one coast or the other).  Plus we got to see the great grand daughter who is now an active three year old.  Needless to say there wasn't a lot of social distancing (I did get the lecture from my best friend who works in infectious diseases who said "do not do that again!  You two are old!  Your husband has pre existing conditions!"  Yikes).

The week went pretty well.  We got to see the daughter, her boyfriend, the grandson and his wife and their baby.  However the massive amount of laundry, dishwashing, cleaning, and cooking we did was a bit more than expected--this is exactly why we like to do family reunions on cruise ships!  Hubby and I stayed home the entire week while the kids made occasional trips to see the Las Vegas Strip and Fremont area.  We cooked three big meals a day for everyone so we didn't eat out at all during the visit, I like to bake so there was always lots of goodies to snack on, and everyone just sort of chilled out during the week (they actually wanted to relax at home instead of doing many tourist activities).  It was also nice to rotate through a lot of our stockpiled food which we will work on building up again.

Overall this was one of the most money-saving vacations for all involved.  We had a great time seeing everyone again, the great grandbaby was so cute and good natured, and while we usually treat everyone to meals out and attractions which didn't happen this time, everyone was well-fed and our Netflix subscription got a good workout while everyone was here!

p.s. the above picture is from a sunrise we captured while carting everyone to the airport early in the morning (otherwise we are never awake at sunrise!).