Reeves Family Adventures: Dad's 80th Birthday and Thanksgiving!

My father recently turned 80 years old! His birthday coincides with Thanksgiving every year, so we all got together for the long weekend - Jenny, Kian, Steve, Kathy, Jennifer and Sarah came from Toronto. Mary came from Montreal and we drove down from Ottawa. We also had a family friend, John Legros come to have dinner with us one of the nights.

We decided to focus on a fun family weekend for the birthday celebrations - it's hard to buy presents for the old guy, plus big parties are complicated at this time of year. I volunteered to organize a bunch of games that everyone could play - I used the idea from the game show "Minute to Win It" which has contestants do different types of tasks using everyday household objects. For example, one task was for one person to stack 6 metal 'nuts' (as in nuts and bolts) on top of one another using a chopstick instead of their fingers. Another game was for people to try to figure out the correct order of a set of empty coke cans that I'd put pennies into (5, 10, 15, 20, etc. pennies in each). They could compare the weight, shake the cans, etc., and try to put them in order from smallest number of pennies up to the largest. That game was a big hit.

The kids and some of the grownups also got to go to the Pumpkin Patch to do a big corn maze, and a few brave souls (Jennifer, Mary and Chris) also ventured out to Fort Fright at Fort Henry.

In addition to the fun games, great food and general silliness, we also got to hang out a lot, enjoy the great weather and relax.

My father also has a tradition of swimming in the lake on his birthday every year. As the lake is pretty darned cold at this time of year, the swim is usually pretty quick, but he did it this year again! It was fun to watch, and we actually got some great pictures and a cool video of him doing his annual swim on the day before his actual birthday.

Hope you enjoy the pictures and the video.