This is the last day of the reunion, and all of us together. On my mother's side, there are only 4 left of the original 10. Two were there. My uncle Stan, and Aunt Gladys.
They were raised on a ranch in Montana. My grandfather immigrated from the Ukraine and homesteaded this place. He was of German extraction, hence the name is pronounced like it's 32 degrees fahrenheit.
Their ranch was the '32 bar' (see the license plate on the fence). Tim did well on the gates. There was one that finally befuddled him. Funny. This farm girl knew how it worked! I guess it just proves the point that 'farmer engineered' is a kind of engineering you can't get a degree in!
Sure, this would have been a beautiful house site, up on the hill, looking at another rancher's lake. But in the day, protection against the wind, and being close to your own water was important. The house was down on Checkerboard Creek.
I had a blast with cousins I grew up with. This is Lorie. I heard her voice before I saw her, and said, 'Lorie, is that you?!?'
There were a ton of dogs there. Kaydee is throwing a stick for them.
My sister always comes to these reunions. I had remembered being bitten by flies and mosquitoes on the ranch, and didn't have fond memories. We took our deet Deep Woods Off, and we were fine! Plus, the wind helped.
Jeannette is mixing up eggs. You would put it in a ziplock bag with your choice of cheese, ham, etc., and plop it in boiling water. A few minutes later, an omlette!
This tent looks like an old army tent. It is now owned by a hunting group of guys, and they let my cousin borrow it. All the food was taken care of. Made it nice to just sit around and talk. That's Wanda on the far right. She used to just kill with her jokes as a kid. We'd die laughing and get in trouble (especially in church).
A nice sight when you need it!
William got to shoot a gun. The gopher was lucky. Tim said that he must have just missed it by a hair.
William and Julius had a love hate, really HATE, love relationship. Julius (named after my grandfather and uncle) is German head-strong as well.
William and dad took some hikes. This one down to the home place.
In 6 years it will be the 100 year anniversary of the founding of the ranch. This barn isn't that old, but it sure looks it. The ranch has been in lease mode for years now.
This is the house my mom grew up in. Luckily, mom was out of the house before the last 2 of the 10 were born. At most, they had 8 kids in this house at one time. And that addition to the house (to the right, for a kitchen) wasn't added until my mom was gone, as well.
Grandpa raised sheep. In the summer, that meant some of the kids were gone to the hils herding sheep! :)
This is the footing, still there, of the house mom was born in. Too far from water, and on the hill and battered by winds in winter, they moved to that new 'nice house' you just saw.
Getting grass to grow this good in Montana is wonderful, and due to my cousin Bob's hard work.
Lary helps a lot, too. He's the one with the cigarette in his mouth, lookin' just like his dad did. Lorie's husband, Chuck and cousin Nathan (Julius' dad) round out the cooking crew for the ribs dinner.
I told Joyce I was taking this picture of her mixing up the coleslaw while smoking a cigarette. She said that wasn't the least of things she could do while smoking a cigarette! Her parents own a ranch nearby (well, in Montana that term means it's in the same county).
The family meeting. My sister had some ideas and led it. Technically, she's the oldest grandchild. We decided to go to every 3 years for a reunion, instead of every 2.
This is Bob. He put in so much work getting horses there for the kids to ride (and be used to get the cattle onto different pasture), dirt bikes, 4 wheelers, his 4X4 truck that could get around the ranch, he brought it all. His friends are the ones who let us borrow the huge tent. He brought in the potable water, port-a-potties and tables. He's the one who keeps eyes on the ranch and does the work needed. He's a veteran of the Iraq war, and I'm proud to be his cousin. Great guy.
This is the bit in the Meagher (pronounced Marr... with that Irish brogue) County news. Jeannette wrote it, I sent it via email, and the picture. And it all got published. It says: Family and Land are Forever is the theme of the Julius Fries Family Reunion. Amen.
We went on one of these Friends and Family Cruises a couple of years ago and had a blast. Our only regret was that William wasn't old enough to go. We hoped that they would offer another one once he was old enough, and we were lucky enough that they did. So we signed ourselves up and it was shamelessly all about William's adventure (though, the air show is worth it no matter how many times you see it...)
We toured all around the ship to see the mess decks, post office, ship's store, chapel, fore castle, Combat Control, and more. William learned how to go up and down the ladders safely and how to operate fast acting water tight doors. They had all kinds of hands on activities for kids and any person on duty would invite any child nearby to try out the equipment at their duty station (no, they did not let anyone into the propulsion plants...) Here William is hosing down the training F-18 shell and he even got to handle a 50 caliber machine gun (and there were bullets in the magazine, but not chambered and he was heavily supervised by friendly, qualified sailors.) Awesome!
Since it is a long 12 hour day, they provide all kinds of entertainment. Hanger Bay #3 was set up as a kid's area with bouncy house (which William spent an hour and a half in), face painting, movies, balloon animal making, sumo suit arena, multi axis spin and puke machine, paint ball arena, and this padded staff jousting set-up. All for free (aside from the $15 per person charge for the whole cruise.) William wanted me to joust with him, but luckily, there was this kid who didn't have a challenger. I sent William up since this looked like a fairer fight (and I didn't need to get up there...). William was probably out classed by age, size, and experience, but I thought he did quite well. Watch the video to see the result...
William loved touring around the flight deck and getting a close look at the few airplanes and helicopters they'd kept on board for the air show.
When it came time for the air show, the whole crowd migrates to the flight deck. They have gear lined up along the side of the angle deck as a barrier and installed bigger bleachers than they did last year. We went up about an hour before the show and Caroline was able to get a seat on the bleachers (if you look closely, you can see the top of her head in the middle of the top row of the first set of bleachers you see above.) As for William and me...
We got front row seats on the flight line! William sat down on this "white gear" and patiently waited for the show to start. Only drawback was that the gear was greasy and dirty. Along with an hour and a half of sitting here, the sweat from all his time in the bouncy house, and getting sprayed down from the sea water fire hoses, he turned his bath water gray at the end of the day... All worth it!
They brought along three F/A-18 Hornets, an E-2 Hawkeye, and an EA-6B Prowler to catapult off the carrier in front of the crowd.
Here is the E-2 Hawkeye prepping for launch.
The Hornets did touch and go's. With all the people on the flight deck, they won't risk a broken arresting wire, so they remove them all and the planes come down like they are landing, and then apply full throttle as they hit (as they always do in case they miss the wire) and they take off again. The bone rattling power of an afterburner 4o feet away, is an awe inspiring sensation. You can see William wince at feeling it for the first time in the video. The sound track doesn't do it justice.
The USS LASSEN (DDG 82) was having their friends and family cruise too and they came alongside to watch the air show and then showed off some of their toys. They fired a few quick bursts of their CWiS (R2D2 looking radar guided gattling gun) which sounded more like a loud raspberry than a machine gun. Then they fired five rounds from their 5" deck gun...
Caroline is awesome! If you click open this picture and look to the upper right of the picture, you can see the gray blur of the projectile. Wow!
The last of the show was the two helicopters showing the US and Japanese flags to show the partnership the USS GEORGE WASHINGTON represents. It was a great day!
