Family Reunion, Day 3: The (Never Ending) Trip Down Memory Lane

Unfortunately for Jason and Amelia, they missed much of Saturday's activities.  Amelia was wiped from the day at the park so she stayed home with Jason and took a 5 hour nap!  Just about everyone else drove to the tiny town of Chester, IL (home of Popeye) to visit my grandparents' graves.  They are buried in Chester, near where they met and grew up.  

Never seen people takes pictures in a cemetery? You would have loved our group then?  My aunt Jane, who lives in TX, has done an amazing job documenting what we know about our family's heritage.  She has a huge binder filled with all kinds of information and an extensive family tree that she has put together.  So, while we were in Chester and some other smaller towns around it, it was decided that we would snap some photos of the gravestones of the many ancestors buried in the area to include in the binder.  So began a several hour long cemetery tour that I know Amelia would have never survived.  

We also drove to a tiny town called Welge (which is my grandmother's maiden name) and took pictures of the old farm house where my grandparents used to live and where one of my uncles was born. Surprisingly, the house is still standing and looks to be in pretty good shape.  There was a lot of, "Remember when so and so did such and such right there" and "We used to walk uphill both ways, yadda, yadda yadda".  Near the end of the "tour", my cousin Laura and I couldn't even get ourselves out of the car.  At one point a neighbor came out to ask what was going on since 3 carloads of people were standing around snapping pictures and pointing at this particular house.  He was friendly enough, but claimed he couldn't help much with information since he'd only been in his house for 30 years!  Is that all?  Since then, there's been talk of getting t-shirts made for everyone that say, "I survived the cemetary tour 2008.  Chester, IL".  Yes, it was that bad.

Then, we ate at the same place we always do when visiting the town, Reid's Harvest House Smorgasbord.  It is the type of restaurant that you can only find in a town like Chester.  Its buffet-style and filled with locals. One may think that a restaurant that's filled with locals would have to be good, but in this instance I would beg to differ.  In this particular case, it is more like its filled with locals because it is basically the only restaurant in town. But, perhaps I am just bitter because I am NOT a buffet person.  Dessert buffet? Sure! But certainly not the sneeze guard variety that was Reid's.

That evening some family went to play at the City Museum, while the rest of us gathered at my parents house for a low-key dinner, some horseback riding, and some Wii playing.

Hope you don't mind Laura that I stole some pics from your site :)