We just finished our family reunion for 2026. We haven’t had one in I think 3-4 years, since before grandma passed away. My Aunt Deb is the one who pushed for and wanted it. The rest of the family did not want it and they were vocal privately about that before hand. We’re not really a close family, most people argue and don’t get along. They just play nice to each other’s faces and then talk shit about each other behind closed doors.
Deb got some money from grandma and she decided to use it to pay for this family reunion. She planned everything and did not include ANYONE in the planning of it before hand. Everything was a secret. Which again, THE REST OF THE FAMILY WAS COMPLAINING ABOUT BEFORE HAND. Also, in EVERY SINGLE text previous to the start of the event, she had said “bring an iPad, books, etc as you will have personal downtime”
On Wed she picked us up, yes that’s right, we didn’t even have our own cars. We then drove down to Lenox where my grandparents used to live to visit the graves, put out some flowers, drive around the old town and see everyone’s houses, etc.
It was good to get to Lenox, I had been meaning to drive down there and see the town and stuff. But at the same time, it was very annoying to be cooped up with the family in a van for 10 hours driving around doing nothing.
After Lenox we literally drove back to DES MOINES and got a hotel there. The hotel was 15 minutes from both my parents house and my cousins house and seriously 2 blocks from my aunt’s house. WHY THE FUCK do we need to stay in a hotel in the city we have all lived in and grown up in our entire lives. If you’re going to force us into a reunion without cars, etc TAKES US SOMEWHERE FUN that we haven’t spent 40 years growing up in.
Thursday we all met for breakfast at 7:30 and then went off for the days adventure. Because Deb wasn’t telling anyone what any of the plans were (she was just very vague) I had decided to send astra with my uncle Tim who was “sick” and couldn’t attend. Come to find out, all we were doing was going to Big Creek and spending the day at the beach there. A place that I spent EVERY DAY during the summer at as a kid. And as an adult we go to TWICE A DAY to walk the dog. It’s seriously 2 minutes from my parent’s house. When I used to run, I would run through there every day. I ride my bike through there all the time. AGAIN I didn’t need to “take time off” to go sit at a place I have been to a million times.
And to top it all off, we were there for TEN FUCKING HOURS. Sitting there doing seriously nothing. She had planned hamburgers and hot dogs for lunch. There’s 10 of us. She had bought enough food for 30. Then at 6pm Hy-Vee delivered tacos, again enough food for 30 fucking people.
After being in the heat all day, doing absolutely nothing and being annoyed as fuck that she wouldn’t share plans. I was pretty grump. So we all go back to the hotel and basically force us into going to the hot tub. Cause if you say NO to her for anything she gilt trips you.
So we’re all sitting in the hot tub and she pulls out edible at 9:30 at night. I had had enough. EVERYONE told her no, but she again gilt trips and pushes you until everyone caved in and said yes. Then everyone went to bed. Deb told me to stay a minute, I assume cause she knew I was annoyed.
Also, throughout the entire two days, anytime Deb wasn’t around, EVERYONE was complaining about the situation, not knowing what we were doing, why we were staying in DSM, etc. My cousin, her son and I even had our own snapchat group in which we were all complaining.
Here I am, high, tired and annoyed as fuck. And she’s pushing me about what’s wrong. So I finally tell her that 1) It’s been two days of non-stop insanity and we’re all tired and need down time and 2) that we haven’t had ANY personal time like she said we would have.
She kinda turns it around on me acting like it was JUST ME who is upset. I told her, no everyone is needing downtime. She then gave me an ultimatum that I could either skip the morning or afternoon the next day. But again she wouldn’t TELL ME what we were doing. I kept trying to tell her, I JUST WANT AN HOUR or two to chill to myself. It had been two days of 12+hours together in tight quarters. I have work stuff I need to do, phone calls to make, etc. So finally she told me that the plans the next day were to have breakfast at 8am, a private museum tour at 9am, lunch, then living history farms then dinner then a concert. AGAIN another 12+ hour day of having ZERO downtime. Since she refused to budge on giving us personal time, I told her “fine, I’ll skip living history farms since I’ve been there a million times” . Then I left and went to bed.
By the time I got back to the room from the hot tub she had sent this giant passive aggressive text to the entire family. I then texted the private snapchat group that when she asks us in he morning at breakfast if we want downtime the two of them had better fucking speak up and back me up. To which my cousin replied “We will go down with the ship…” Which WTF does that mean? Are they going to back me up or not? (Hint; they didn’t)
Friday was AWK AS FUCK. Deb was obviously pissed off at the museum. The tour guide was TERRIBLE. No one fucking backed me up at breakfast about wanting down time. Etc etc. So now I’m the asshole who said something. After the museum we did come back to the hotel and there was this big discussion about going to living history farms. Deb couldn’t seem to get it through her fucking head that all I wanted was an hour or two to get shit done. She kept pushing and acting like I was just completely skipping the afternoon. Finally we all agreed that we would just meet in an hour and go to living history farms.
So we did that, it was fine. HOT AS FUCK. Why you would plan an entire outdoors walking event in the hottest part of the day is beyond me. Should have done the farm in the morning and the museum in the afternoon.
After that we did dinner, then the group kinda broke up. The young people stayed at hotel and the old people went to the concert. Jim (deb’s husband) also stayed behind at the hotel.. We my brother, cousin, her son, myself and Jim were all sitting outside playing card games just chatting, having a good time. During that conversation these gift baskets that the aunt had left in our rooms came up. We were talking about what each person got and stuff. I said something along the lines of “I wonder how she decided that to put in each room”. Mainly because I had got stuff that I wasn’t really that interest in. But whatever, it doesn’t matter. Just a basic offhanded comment.
Saturday we got up and again had breakfast at fucking 7:30 am. Then we drove over to this bike rental shop. We arrived 15 minutes before they opened and the guy was there having trouble with the key. Before he was even IN THE STORE Deb was outside talking to him, asking him a billion question. Like just leave the guy alone and let him get the store open. He finally gets the door open and starts to bring the 10 bikes out that we had rented. As soon as the first bike was out deb told us all to get out of the van and go stand there. I made a comment bout “just give the guy a minute”. And she gave me some snarky ass response. Seriously, the guy is still getting the bikes out, give him some fucking TIME to get organized, get things out, etc. There’s ZERO need for all 10 of us to be hovering over him as he gets setup.
So we did the bike ride. That was probably the best part of the entire weekend. It went fine, we biked to adel, had lunch then biked back.
After that we had some downtime again, back to the hotel. But on the way back on the bikes dad told me that our renters had a leak and we had to go home and fix it.. WE (my dad and I) had already come up with a plan about how to handle it all. On the drive back we were basically INFORMING the family what we were going to do… Jim and Jim are in the front of this big van. Deb is ALL the way in the back of the van. Dad was telling them what our plan was and Deb jumps in and starts trying to make all these crazy plans (that her husband could drive us there, blah blah blah). I made this comment along the lines of “don’t worry deb, we can talk about it once we get back to the hotel”. Because 1) JIM and JIM cannot HEAR anything at the front of the van, 2) the we already had a fucking plan and 3) she was just CRAZY complicating it. She snarked back. Then we get back to the hotel and as we’re exiting my dad announces that he and I were just going to dive the van back home. Deb said “see Chris, I told you we could figure it out” to which I replied “I had no doubt that we’d figure it out”. She then snarked back and said she was getting sick of all my snarky comments.
So dad and I go fix it then back to the hotel to sit in the hot tub, etc. Then dinner, then we went to the high trestle bridge which was nice.
Sunday she tells use all to meet for breakfast at 8am. I was HOPING that we would go somewhere besides just the hotel. But I get out there at 7:50am to wait and Deb and her husband are already sitting there eating. WTF happened to 8am!? Also why the fuck would you have our last breakfast in the hotel which we’ve already been eating the same fucking thing for days. Then they drive us home and drop us off.
Another thing I haven’t mentioned about was all the Janell bashing. EVERY free moment they would start bashing her about something. Talking about how she’s not really grandpa’s daughter, how she’s crazy, etc, etc. There’s been this long standing feud that goes back years. Janell is basically estranged from the family. GET OVER IT. There’ no need to keep bringing it up over and over and over again. Also she’s STILL FAMILY, you don’t need to be bashing her this much. Fucking move on people.
And then at one point my aunt who’s gluten free went on this bitch fest about when she takes gluten free stuff to a pot luck and everyone eats it before she can eat it and they cross contaminate from the gluten food, etc etc. She said something like “Don’t each my gluten free food, eat your own food”. OK what part of POT LUCK don’t you understand. The whole fucking point of a pot luck is for you to bring a dish YOU LIKE and share it with everyone.
The whole fucking thing was annoying as fuck. 1) the fact that no one but me spoke up to her about wanting down time, etc. 2) the fact that on one backed me up once I did speak up. 3) she was forcing us to do stupid games and stuff that our family is NOT into. 4) 5 days together is just way too fucking much. 6) Janel bashing. 7) just the whole fucking situation.
In good news, it gave me time to actually hookup with guys. But I met this funny cute chunky Mexican boy the first night. We ended up hanging out every night at the hotel. Make out, jerk off, he would spend the night. He’s army, infantry. In college to be a lawyer. Super nice guy so far. But I gotta make sure I don’t get too invested too fast. Although I feel ike this is gonna be a hot and heavy situation. He was pushing me to come over last night after we had already spent 4 nights together.
Boat news: Nothing. Looks like I’ll be headed to the Bahamas this winter again. I’m going to sign up to be an ASA instructor. I’ve been watching the videos of my broker on the boat and he’s fucking TERRIBLE.
Work news: I picked up a new property management agreement. Which I’m a bit scared about. I picked TWO contract jobs for consulting. One of which is with my old company. They are firing the guy they hired to replace me. And want me to cover while they do a search for someone new. Interesting they didn’t ask if I wanted to come back but they want me to cover for him. WTF is up with that.
Oddly, I’ve been kinda missing Kellie lately. I dunno…