10 Ways to Upgrade Your Next Family Reunion

Hey guys, welcome back to Ruffington. Today I'm gonna share with you 10 really fun things we did at my family reunion, and hopefully they can help you guys plan a fun reunion with your family too, or friends, or whoever, just fun things to do with a big group of people. And we had a big group of people. We had me and my four siblings, and my mom and dad, and my siblings' spouses and families, 12 adults and like 13 grandkids, something like that. It was crazy. One of my most favorite things we did was we went on a hike. We're up in Washington, and so we went on this hike called Franklin Falls. If you're ever up here, it's a great one for families. It wasn't too long, but it was not too short that it like wasn't a hike. And at the end, there's a really beautiful waterfall. We brought our lunches, and people could play in the water if they wanted to. It was a really fun hike. Wow, you're brave. Is it cold? Yeah. It might be as cold as that part. Obviously being close to Seattle, we wanted to check out a few landmarks. We went to Pike Place Market with everybody, and we checked out the gum wall and walked through the market. People could get little trinkets or souvenirs or some treats. It was really fun. It's always fun to kind of explore the city you're near. Even if you're in your hometown, I feel like it'd be fun to go see a landmark or go see a site that maybe you don't see a lot or consider going to because you're a local. Same day we did Pike Place Market, we just kept driving right up to Ballard, and we went to Golden Gardens Beach. It was really fun. We love that beach. It's sandy, and it was warm and sunny, and we set up a canopy and just relaxed, and our kids, honestly, all the grandkids, they could beach all day long. It was awesome. The very first night we had everyone there, we got babysitters, and we went, only adults, out to dinner. It was awesome. It was so nice not to have little humans asking you for all their human needs constantly, and we could just actually sit and talk to an adult for a couple hours. It was perfect. And I know it's really hard for people to get babysitters for family reunions and things, but honestly, it's worth it because I think as adults we forget we need to connect with each other without our kids. This is a Porter classic. The Porters, that's my side of the family, the Porters. We love games. We always have to get a solid game night in, and honestly, we normally don't manage to get all the kids to sleep so we can have an adult game night, but we did this time. We were at my house. We got all, I think, 14 grandkids down to sleep here, and we played games for like two hours. It was amazing. But that being said, it was fun with just adults, but we also love having our kids play games, too. They were kind of sad that they didn't get to stay up with us, but a lot of these fun games, we do just party games. The little kids are getting old enough now that they can start joining in. It's really, really fun. A game night. You gotta do a game night. So a couple simple ideas you can do just when you're in between activities, planned outings or whatever, get some new tech out. Usually, someone's got some new tech game, a video game or a drone or something that people want to see and participate in, so this time, my brother-in-law, Mike, he had his VR set, and so we got the VR out and people got to play games and just kind of laugh at whoever's making a fool of themselves with the goggles on. It was really fun. I'm like. What? Eat it. One thing I really tried hard to do this time around, and I know it's really hard because when you have family coming into town that you don't get to see that often and cousins are playing with cousins they never see, it's hard to do this, but I am a firm believer in quiet time and alone time because my kids, they just like, I don't know what it is, but they just like go crazy if they're constantly bombarded with questions and hugs and games and playing and just all of it really overstimulates them, so I really encourage some down time. Naps. You know, take a break and have your kids take actual naps. Have them have quiet time. Maybe put a movie on even is good too. Just schedule in a little down time because if you do, it'll make the together time a lot better, especially with little kids. Somehow in our family, we always end up doing a craft, and this time, because we were up here, I planned to do tie-dye shirts, and it was so fun, and I wasn't totally sure if it was gonna work out, but it was really great. I went to Hobby Lobby and I got white t-shirts. They actually had all the sizes we need and plenty of them, so check your Hobby Lobby, and they were pretty cheap. I think they were like three or five bucks or something like that, and then I actually already had the tie-dye kit from last year, but pro tip for tie-dyeing, they don't last for a year. We did it, and it was so fun, and then once we got them all rinsed and washed, the yellows and the oranges and the reds didn't show through, so our shirts are very purple and blue and light green, but that being said, it still was really fun, and I know that if we had a fresh kit, they would have been even better, and of course, if you're with all of your family, make sure you get a photo in. I'm sure Grandma and Grandpa always want to get a professional photographer. My dad happens to be one, and so we got everyone together one of the mornings at a really beautiful spot nearby, and we took official family picture, and it was great, and they turned out really cute. We just got them back, but yeah, schedule time in for a family photo. It's a family reunion. You gotta take a photo. Take a picture. I can't get into it, but I hear you now, but shout hooray. Hooray! If you're happy, and you know who the winner is. Winnie likes it, so if you're happy and you know it, shout hooray. Hooray! And probably my number one favorite thing we do with people up here in Seattle is we go crabbing, and by we, I mean Zach. Zach goes crabbing, and then we feast upon the crab. What we do is we take Zach's, you know, he's gotten all the gear and everything he needs in order to take the crab pots out into the, and by crab pot, it's just the crab cage. We take two cages out into the Puget Sound, and he lowers them down, and then we get him back up a couple hours, or even like overnight. We'll go pick him up and see if we have any crabs. This time we had I think six red rock crabs, and so then we take them home. He cleans them. We boil them with corn on the cob, and potatoes, and sausage, and some seasoning, and then you have lots of butter, and salt, and pepper around, and you just pour it out on the table, and it's really, really fun. Corn, it looks like it's going like that. Yummy. Ooh, sausage. Dad is so excited. Yeah. Oh, you're gonna use plates? It's one of my favorite things to do. Even though a lot of our crowd didn't really care for seafood, it's still kind of a fun, local thing to do. It was really fun. The crab night is always a hit. So those are just some fun ideas of what you guys could do with your family at your family reunion. We love our family. We love seeing them here. I wish I took more videos so you guys could see just how hilarious everybody is. We have so much fun playing games, and being outside, and the cousins making memories together. It's really important to us, and we were super happy that everyone was able to come out, and come see our part of the world this summer. It was awesome. Let me know in the comments down below what you guys do at your family reunion. I'm always looking for new ideas, and I'm excited for the next couple weeks. I'm trying to catch up on all of our summer videos, because I've been very slow at posting them. So I'm gonna post some more of our summer adventures, and then I'm gonna get back into kind of normal life, what we're doing from day to day here up in Seattle. So stay tuned for that, and we'll see you next time. Bye. Chicken. Taco. Boom. Chicken. Taco. Chicken. Taco. Boom. Chicken. Taco. Chicken. Taco. Boom. Chicken. Taco. Chicken. Taco.