Schmitz Family Reunion

Every August my parents host the whole Schmitz family at their house in Westphalia. The timing usually coincides with the return of my aunt and uncle from Michigan and mom and dad wanted a way for everyone to get together when they were back home. Since then, August has usually become the time that this event happens, regardless of who can make it. This year the date was August 5th.

The day is usually passed by visiting, eating, playing Pitch, watching the Harvest Tournament, and playing made up games. One year, some invented a game where the object was to toss a piece of pea-rock on the concrete and who ever landed the rock closest to the crack in the concrete wins. Easily entertained we Schmitzes are.

To give you an idea of how many people are actually in my family, if my whole extended family on the Schmitz side were to attend (all descendants of Nick and Sally), we would approximately double the entire population of Westphalia Metro area. But then again, the population boom would only be temporary. Like my dad always says about Westphalia: "The population always stays the same. Every time a woman gets pregnant, a guy leaves town."

Come to think of it, all the Schmitzes should move back to Westphalia. It would be Blazing Saddles all over again. Earling better watch out, because if that ever happens, we may take over as the 5th most populated town in Shelby County. To put it in terms that most of you should understand, if everyone in my family would attend this event, the Harlan Tribune and News Advertiser would have to create a special section dedicated solely to The Westphalia News and would have to file worker's comp on Lorenne Kaufmann for the immense writers cramp she would have from only writing the attendees of the get-together.

My grandparents have 11 children, 40-something grandchildren, over 100 great-grandchildren, and 1 great, great-grandchild:

Anna Rae Gallinger - The First Great, Great-Grandchild of my Schmitz Grandparents

So to summarize how the day went, here is a run down of the fun had by all:

Eating
Playing Pitch
More eating
Sneaking away to watch the Harvest Tournament
Getting yelled at for missing pictures because you were at the Harvest Tournament
More eating
Playing closest rock to the crack
More pitch
Lots of sweating (it's always hot)
More eating
Sweating while playing pitch
Having Grandma for a partner playing pitch and having her yell at you for playing your cards wrong
Eating
Pitch
And more sweating because you ate too much (a.k.a. the meat sweats)


Here are some pictures from the day (thanks to Lynn Schmitz for the photos):

View all the pictures here.

In closing, I'll leave you with the Simpsons reinactment of my grandparents calling the kids in for supper (Telemundo version) Sorry, I couldn't find an English copy, but you get the gist. And yes, while I do have an uncle Cletus, I do not have a cousin Q-Bert (unfortunately).