well this is an unusual topic what do you think about it
 	
 	
 		yeah i at first i it took eight times to find you you  so i told my husband um you know what should i say and then he reminded me but um
 		um  his in his family uh what they usually do on his dad's side his mom or um the aunts will send out little postcards
 		like two or three weeks before reminding everyone where the
 		where to meet and you know just to bring anything and so they just notify everyone by mail and then they just meet at like a park or something to have like a a short um
 		or a small um dinner type thing
 	
 	
 		well that sounds great Ellen how far away do they come from right
 	
 	
 		um they come from
 		well they all meet in Portland and they come as far as oh Seattle and and sometimes we've gone and we were from we were living in Utah at the time
 	
 	
 		oh okay
 	
 	
 		and um but his his dad's family is all around the area and
 		his mom's side of the family they all uh have their family reunions in southern Utah and people would come from Seattle to there and um
 		let's see Nevada and in that area Washington and Nevada to southern Utah and they would
 		um assign a different person each time they had a reunion they'd assign a different person to be in charge of notifying everybody
 	
 	
 		oh okay that makes sense nobody's out of a lot of trouble more than once
 	
 	
 		yeah yeah and the people who are down there like they'll assign one person in the Utah area one person in the Washington area and that person can call
 		you know beforehand and just make sure everyone knows too
 	
 	
 		um-hum
 	
 	
 		and then they just sort of do like a little program or you know something like that so that everyone's sort of involved
 	
 	
 		yeah
 		that's interesting you sound like you've had a lot of experience with this then
 	
 	
 		oh well  that's my husband's side and my mom's my mom's or my family family uh we we all live in southern California so we just have to either call or
 	
 	
 		
 
 	
 	
 		give a formal invite and we're all there so
 	
 	
 		southern California's still pretty large
 	
 	
 		yeah well i mean LA Orange County area i mean everyone's you know mostly not farther than an hour away
 	
 	
 		i see
 		and
 		yeah
 		well my experience um
 		has been limited pretty much lately to my mother's side of the family uh
 	
 	
 		uh-huh
 	
 	
 		years ago there was a big dispute on my dad's side and uh
 		they haven't had a reunion since then they just show up at funerals and weddings
 	
 	
 		oh
 	
 	
 		it was pretty serious and lot of yelling and all that but anyway my mother's side
 	
 	
 		wow
 	
 	
 		we had our our first real reunion that i've ever gone to last summer and they had people come in from out of town and they took some some rooms down at a Holiday Inn and
 		uh they had some activity they had a nice dinner planned and all of that stuff and
 		people got up and talked about various parts of the family tree and you know a lot of that sort of thing since it was the first one that we'd had
 		the you you could do that once now next time we have one we'll have to think of something more creative to do
 	
 	
 		well you know that's interesting because one thing that always brings to my uh husband's
 		mother's side together is um they talk about the genealogy of the family tree every time and everyone inevitably everyone is just
 		very interested and and they always have you know two or three new ones to add to the list you know someone's been born or someone passed away or you know something like that and so everyone has to update their little
 	
 	
 		oh
 		well have have you do you have an interest in genealogy
 	
 	
 		books or whatever
 		um  uh i do but not to very much compared to my mother-in-law
 	
 	
 		not a passion huh

 		um
 		i suspect we'll do quite a bit more genealogy and i i suspect we will do more of it
 		um i found out some about some of the relatives i didn't you know i i didn't even know their names some of the
 	
 	
 		oh
 	
 	
 		two or three generations back and some of the aunts and uncles and
 		uh there's a lot of things there you have to stop they're really kind of fascinating i found out my grandmother was one of a twin and we don't even know where the twin
 	
 	
 		oh
 	
 	
 		we have virtually no
 		no background on on her on the twin
 	
 	
 		really is that your your grandma's own sibling and she
 	
 	
 		uh my grandmother's uh
 		sister
 		who would be somewhere in in West Virginia i'm sure she's you know dead now because my grandmother died in about twenty years ago
 	
 	
 		oh i see oh so
 	
 	
 		i'm i'm quite a bit i'm probably a lot older than you are
 		um
 	
 	
 		well maybe um they just moved away and then just sort of lost contact and
 	
 	
 		i don't know