Out with the CREAM, in with the ROME

Before we officially let CREAM go the way of all the earth and instate ROME as the new acronym for couples' reunions, we would like to reminisce on the wonderful time that was had, the memories that were made, and the relationships that were treasured. Before we go too far, the acronym ROME stands for Reunion Of Married Ericksons. The best part of the new acronym is that people will think that we go to Italy as a family every other year.

Because Ericksons love ice cream there was not a better way to kick off the reunion than to eat a large portion of good ice cream. Vanderwende's was just the ticket to get our fix. Mary must be her father's daughter because they each got a scoop of black raspberry and coconut ice cream.

While not everyone got to stop at this great place, it was a good pit stop for the much-longer-than-needed-to-be journey.

Upon arrival everyone was happy to get out of the car and stretch their legs, especially the children. For most of the parents there having just one child to chase seemed like a wonderful break. For Eliza and I, it was the normal all-four-of-our-hands-are-full fun. Luckily grandparents love to hold grandchildren.

After the delicious dinner of shish kabobs and some beach time, we had a hilarious time playing Clue-Cha-Phone. It is a combination of the game Clue, charades, and telephone. Three people are initially sent away from the rest of the group. The group picks a place of the murder, weapon of choice, and an unfortunate character.  For example, one of the places was a submarine, one of the weapons was a wet noodle, and one of the characters was Lucille Ball. That is the clue portion. The charade portion starts by inviting the first of the three excused people back in. He picks three people from the group and has each of them perform charades for the one of the three parts of Clue. He must remember them because the telephone part of the game happens as he acts out each of the three parts of Clue for the next person that was sent out. She will then act it out for the final person who tries to guess all three. Needless to say, things can get jumbled or exaggerated through acting, and the results can be very funny. Everyone laughed hard and had a good time. 

While all the activities that were enjoyed could have their own paragraph, the following list with a couple pictures will finish up this post. Everyone can feel free to add to this post by posting their own memories and pictures. 

CREAM

Hour drive each way for church

Sweet Pork Cafe Rio Salad for dinner

Intense Bocce in the back yard

Lego Movie laughs

Outrageously good omelets

Flick-a-stick on the beach

Creating sand sculptures of wonder

Hunting for sand creatures and releasing them into the wild 

Equally intense Beach Bocce

Baby feeding on the beach (it should have been an event for the Beach Olympics)

Going out to eat for scrumptious seafood including deep fat fried octupus known to some as calamari

Flash back FHE and telling memories and future planning

Bad-to-the-bone breakfast burritos

Beach Olympics including events in shot put, disc golf discus, long jumping, and frisbee target shooting

Sweet sand volleyball

Crazy, creamy custard

Lepacious lasagna (I made that word up. If you can't tell I am practicing my adjectives.)

More ice cream--I think this was at least several times a day

Flick-a-stick

Sand sculpting with sculpted people

She found her doppelganger

Searching for the sand bugs

Baby beach feeding

It is always more fun to take pictures of the children

The reunion was a blast. We had a great time laughing and talking and eating (of course eating) and sleeping and playing. The best thing about the whole reunion was to see family, talk to family, hug family, play with family, reminisce with family, laugh with family, and love family. Many memories were made. Relationships were renewed. We were all reminded that families are forever!