Kurt Family Reunion

We met up at my Aunt Lois's farm outside of Bellevue, IA for the family reunion. It's a full-blown farm with lots of cows, which Maddie and I went to check out. It might be just me being a little paranoid, but they seem to stare at you as walk by them. One of my cousins explained that in the same way we look at them as hamburger, they look at us and think what a blast it would be to trample us. We had a photographer there to take pictures of the whole Kurt clan and the smaller groups. We had custom shirts printed for the Michigan Kurts along with custom beer coozies, in the Iowa tradition.

My cousin Jodi and her husband Terry borrowed a party bus which we packed the whole family into and headed off on a site-seeing tour of our family history. We had coolers and lawn-chairs everywhere, babies in laps - you name it, we took the safety precaution. We stopped off at Jodi's and got a chance to see her Mary Kay shrine and her bikes. We drove through Springbrook and got to see the place where Jon fell (he claims I pushed him) off the giant slide and broke his arm.

At Carol's they had a horse and wagon and a pony for the kids to take for rides. Emily was in heaven being able to lead her cousins around. We got a giant game of tag going on these huge hay-bales in their yard as well.

We stopped at my Grandma and Grandpa's old house and my Aunts and Uncles would share a fun fact about the place. It was a ton of fun connecting with all of my relatives and our history. Believe it or not, my siblings and I really dig Iowa. We used to come out here 4 or 5 times a year to see my cousins and the only downside was packing all of us into a car for 10 hours. Our cousins were always super gracious to us when we'd come out and visit, and even as rarely as we see them, there's always this connection, because we're family. As a small token of thanks, we presented Jodi with a custom thong with the Kurt Family Reunion logo on it. I'm pretty sure she'll treasure it forever.

Today we're heading to Bellevue for a parade, carnival and fireworks. We roll out of here tomorrow morning.

You can see more of the pictures here.