Grace’s Blog

Our family reunion pancakes are the best.  Those that saw my family reunion blog post pictures on June 20 noticed our grandson cooking pancakes.

These are not ordinary pancakes.  Since my husband and I are in charge of breakfast at our family reunions, we make special pancakes.

A few years ago, one of the relatives asked why ours tasted different from the ones he made at home using the same mix.  He thought it might be because we were in the mountains and the pines.

I decided to share what makes our pancakes special.

I start with the base using a pancake mix that only requires water.

For a big group like our family, I pour the mix into a very large bowl…about half the bag of mix.

I add 6-8 eggs, about a half cup of oil, and a half box of cake mix, either white or yellow.

(I don’t measure, I just dump it in.  I cook like my mother.)

I then add enough water to make the pancakes thin enough to cook on the grill.  Mix it all together and cook on a hot grill.

At home for the two of us, I use one egg, 1-2 tablespoons of oil and 2-3 tablespoons of cake mix.

You don’t have to have exact measurements.  It all comes out good.

Enjoy!  Make them for your family this Fourth of July holiday weekend.

 Shaklee Dist.

Family fun begins each year around my grandmother’s birthday in June at our family reunion. Grandmother is no longer with us but her posterity goes on.

My dad, her oldest child,  is now 96. 

We come together at our family center, which is a large home without some of the inside walls, leaving a large room with tables and chairs to eat at. 

We have two bathrooms, each with two toilets and two showers.  One for the girls and one for the boys.

Our meals are prepared on site in a large kitchen with two grills, a commercial refrigerator, an ice machine, and a soft ice cream machine.

The ice machine provides plenty of ice for snow cones, and the ice cream machine runs all day and goes on stand-by at night.  The kids can have as much as they can eat.

The utility room has a washer and dryer and a regular refrigerator.

Outside is a large patio to one side of the building.  A play ground for the kids is to the north of our center.  It has swings, a sand pile, a zip line, a basketball court and tether ball.

We camp-out in tents, trailers and motor homes.  

This is our granddaughter arriving for the week-end.

 

 

Mornings begin with breakfast.  We have pancakes, omlets, hash browns, bacon, sausage, watermellon, cantalope, orange juice and milk.

Our grandson is learning the tricks of cooking on the grill from his granddad.  Someday he will take over.

 

 

 

 

Here are some pictures of the kids having fun.

 

This is the “whirl-a-hurl” swing, so named by the teen-agers.  There was a time when they would eat a bunch of ice-cream and see who would “hurl” first. 

There are six seats and it goes round and round and the faster it goes, the higher the swings go.

 

 There are regular swings too, for all sizes of kids:

 

 

 

The older kids like to play basketball. 

 

The sand pile is a fun place for the little ones, especially when a water hose provides the water to build streams and dams.  Great fun for hours at a time.

  

Ping Pong is a game everyone likes to play.  Here are two contenders for the championship, Michael and Andy.  Michael won.  Andy challenged him to a re-match next year.

 

 

And here is an up-and-coming ping-pong champion.

 

 

Waiting on the “tower” to take their turn riding the zip line. Notice the ice-cream cone.

 

 

Another one enjoying the ice-cream.

 

 

And another….

 

 

The slide is fun too…..

 

 It’s all just too much fun……..

My niece singing for my Dad (age 96).  It was her talent for the talent show.

 

That’s all folks!

 

 

Shaklee Dist.