Rooney Shindig

We ventured over to Rick’s sister’s house Labor Day weekend to attend the 2nd Annual Rooney Family Reunion.

What a great time it was!

For a few short hours we were able to relax and enjoy the company of family.  It’s always fun to be able to sit around and catch up on what is going on in everybody’s life.

Rick wasn’t sure we were going to be able to make it this year because he had some dental work (aka all his teeth extracted) done just a couple days before, but luckily he was feeling just fine and even able to down a couple of hamburgers.  How he managed this I have no clue.

This year we had the pleasure of some four-leggeds attending the festivities.

I’m just a sucker for animals, and I really enjoy photographing them.

They all have such distinctive personalities:

But the one thing that they all have in common is the love that they share with their person.

But the dogs aren’t the only thing with a commonality.

Every Rooney get-together has to involve a card game of sorts.

This year it was Cribbage.

If you thought that Cribbage was a relaxing, easy-going game you were dead wrong.

This family takes their card games very seriously so don’t even think about interrupting them for anything.

Unless, of course, that interruption involved family pictures which had to be done before Rick & I could make the long journey home.

This year’s photog centered around Jerry’s tractor.  It’s an old Allis-Chalmers that was built back in the day when things were meant to last.

As usual, getting those Rooney kids together for a picture is like herding cats.

And once you finally get them in one spot you have to hope that they behave for 5 minutes.

Much better.

It shouldn’t be surprising that the dogs were easier to manage.

The sunny, hot day ended just as we headed back to the Northwoods.

Nephew Adam snapped this picture of the storm clouds heading towards them.  We listened to the weather updates as we traveled and were lucky enough to keep ahead of the rain.

Which we celebrated by stopping at a Casino on the way home and left with more money in our pockets than we started with.

I’d call that a very successful day.