2002

We arrived in Kennewick, Washington on Thursday, August 15th, 2002 to help Gerry's sister Joyce and husband Tony celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary and Tony's 80th birthday.  Brother Don and Lena had already arrived from Lodi as well as Tony's brother Eugene and Ramona from Minneapolis.  It gets a little complicated as to who is related to who since Lena is Tony's sister and Don is Joyce's brother.  (There are also three Flaherty brothers married to three Siegle sisters - but that's another story.) 

Our RV just fit between the two driveways in front of their house and it was nice to be that close.  They even let us help with the preparations for Saturday's festivities.  All together there were about fifty people from all over.  Sister Mary and Don drove up from Redding on Friday and stayed at the house and helped as well. 

Dinner was at the Old Country Buffet where they cordoned off a large section for our party.  Everyone arrived on time and the food was delicious, from salads to entrees to desserts.  From there we all went back to Tony and Joyce's where a large canopy, tables and chairs were set up in the back yard.  Two large sheet cakes, a mouthwatering carrot cake decorated with Happy 80th Birthday Tony, the other with some kind of berry filling decorated with Happy 40th Anniversary Joyce and Tony, were served with ice cream.  The following day everyone came back and Joyce and Tony fed them again.  Not to mention that she fed everyone staying at the house for LOTS of meals.  Various groups played cards outside or in every day and a generally good time was had by all.

Terry had her trusty digital camera handy and took pictures of everyone, some turning out very well.  It took one whole day to crop the pictures on the computer and print them in preparation for putting together a scrapbook of the event.