Pope Family Reunion

Because we haven't done enough traveling in the last month we decided to go to the Pope Family Reunion in La Plata, near Durango, CO. I'm glad we are going. The reunion is every other year and we didn't go to the last one so it's been 4 years. The Pope's are my mom's side of the family. Just a quick run down of the Pope Family. It consists of, My Grandma, Mimi, My Grandpa, and Step-grandma and my grandparent's 14 children (my mom is number 5) + their spouses and 75* grandchildren. To the best of my knowledge 45* of those grandchildren are married and have produced around 75* great grandchildren. That's over 230* people! As a family we are spread out all of the country. Needless to say I do not know all of these people intimately, but I have made it a point to at least know the names of all 70 of my first cousins, and of course my aunts and uncles. Through facebook and blogs I have gotten to know some of them better but I'm looking forward to actually seeing a lot of them for the first time in a long time. There are 7 of us that are within a few months of the same age. I remember as a kid how much I loved the Pope Reunions. My cousins and I would share a tent and build dams in the river and a few of us girls would sneak off and go skinny dipping. And even though we didn't see each other any other time of the year we would pick up right were we left of 2 years earlier as though no time had passed. I remember my aunt Dedria do french braids in our hair. I remember my uncle Terrel taking kids out to find arrow heads. I remember my older cousins Shana and Raina pretending that they were going to push me off of a cliff. I remember I thought my older cousin Anthony was soooo cute. Ahhh, so many memories. I'm glad we are going.

*These numbers were just my best guesses, actually on the cousin one I was just wrong, but my aunt Arla put together a chart with all of the family members on it and here are the actual numbers. My grandparents have 70 grandchildren and 93 great grandchildren + 41 of the grandchildren are married for a grand total of 234 people in the Bill and Lois Pope family, including in-laws. WOW! I actually guessed pretty close.