For 3 days in June the Primos had a reunion in Cypress Hills, SK at Penny & Wilf’s place just outside the park. What a wonderful time we had, filled with laughter, good food, visits with many seldom seen relatives – 1 from each of New Zealand & England; the rest from BC, AB & SK.

It all started with these lovely folks – our dear grandparents, Helen & Lars Larson.

Penny even found an old newspaper article written on the occasion of their 64th wedding anniversary (from the Swift Current newspaper I believe).

Just previous to our reunion Mom celebrated her 106th birthday Here she is in the restaurant where the family celebrated her. Looking good eh!

Her dear brother Bud, was also remembered with a trip to his gravesite & photograph of his stone.

Here is the beautiful home of Penny & Wilf where most of the events took place:

A couple of morning shots:

Wilf BBQ’d hamburgers with all the toppings, served with Brian’s potato salad, & Penny’s cucumber/onion salad. Steven & Norm dug right in.

For dessert, Brian’s pumpkin cheesecake & pecan pie – a big hit!

After supper we played Bingo. We were so lucky to have Kenny Rogers & Dolly Parton straight from Vegas to do the draw & call.

As you will see, Dolly bared all for us after she’d had a few drinks!

We know there was some other hanky panky going on, since Barry won 3 straight games of Bingo. We eventually had to eliminate him from competion, since (from what we hear) he is not allowed to collect any more caps & that was one of the prizes.

We didn’t have a long evening & I had to take my 3 guests home (the only ones not staying at P&W’s). We nearly hit a large bull moose emerging from the woods – but I was only going 40 so stopped in plenty of time. He was big, black & magnificent with velvet covered antlers! Just past the park kiost we found a mom w/ a pair of twin calves:

On Saturday Joan supplied brunch: strata along with her cinnamon twists & fruit/yoghurt. She generously brought a flat of gorgeous BC strawberries for everyone to enjoy all weekend.

There were a few golf games, however none of the golfers took photos. I’m afraid what went on at the golf course will have to stay at the golf course. I believe there was one highlight shared to us: Joan nearly got a hole-in-one; just a few inches away!

Many others travelled an hour to Eastend. Lorne told the following story about it:

Besides the T-Rex museum I got to actually visit the town of Eastend where I have not been for over half a century. It is the town – and the location of the Eastend Rodeo – where the Cabri Brass Band traditionally led the march down the main street with Trombone Penny and Trombone Lorne leading the way. Actually, it was a triple line of cowboys that led the way and the additional job of Penny/Lorne was to call out horseshit warnings.

Several years ago the people of FOSA (Friends of the Saskatchewan Archives) posted a photo of a line of cowboys on a Saskatchewan main street. They asked for suggestions. It was immediately recognizable to me as the Eastend parade.

This photo from 1956 shows the main street as it curves right from bottom left corner.

Photo by the legendary ‘Howdy’ (Hugh Duncan) McPhail, a Lancaster bomber pilot like Uncle Bud. Different squadron.

It is a remarkably vibrant, pretty town in an age where small towns dwindle away. We inspected ‘Yard of the Year’. The only regret was that the Map/Book store was closed for the holidays. My thanks to Janet for the insights of a close native of the general area. Lorne

Some of us enjoyed the T. Rex Museum. Eastend is the discovery site of the largest specimen ever found in the world! We did goof around on the kids’ play equipment.

Jane recorded a dramatic sky on the trip – no wonder Saskatchewan is the land of living skies!

A few of us drove out to the lookout point in the hills – you can see for miles & miles & miles!

Saturday supper was ribs, taboli, Brian’s potato salad & Penny’s Jasmine rice.

I think everyone ate hearty! For dessert Karen’s angelfood cake w/ blueberry/saskatoon coulis & whipped cream. Here are a collection of photos of the gang.

Saturday evening was the induction ceremony with the last 3 Primos who have never been initiated: Wilf, Lynn & Aldis. We know the main reason Wilf hasn’t been is because he’s been so scared of the ceremony (we always blow up the scared factor when we talk about it!). Haha. It’s still a secret, but here are a couple of shots of the new members (Wilf does look a little scared!)

The crowd gathered & as you can see it was a cool evening despite the giant fire!

Lynn played up to the photographer (she’s so cute eh in Wilf’s big Ford jacket!)

Jane conducted the ceremony but due to confidentiality I can’t share it here.

Certificates were presented & you can see how proud they were!!

Sunday morning a few Primos had to leave to get back to work (yes, there are still some young enough to do that!). My 2 brothers & the Joy sisters. But here’s a couple of pink babes in the morning;

Sunday dinner was Barry’s AMAZING chili – honestly the best I’ve had in a long, long time. Not only a good recipe, but obviously a lot of love went into making it.

It was served with cheese, Karen’s delicious Caesar salad & garlic bread. It seems “too many cooks didn’t spoil the broth”!

Dessert was birthday cake for Erling & Penny (brother & sister) whose BD’s are only 3 days apart. Of course we sang for them & they blew out the candles together.

On Sunday afternoon, Karen conducted her pastry competition, with Jane, Wilf & Arnie as judges.

She had made cherry tarts using her home-made pastry & also using pastry from the freezer at the store. Blindfolds were used to keep things fair & it was an interesting outcome!

Everyone chose the boughten pastry! So comes the end of the Larson pastry-making. Now we’ll all buy it!

Other prizes were given out that evening. An event which also wasn’t photographed was the gopher shooting! Wilf, Arnie, Barry & Norm all took part & the winner was . . .

There were a few other photos worth including here – the 3 green shirts!

The four Joy sisters.

The Ushers.

The Bleakley kids.

The Bud Larson kids.

The Lloyd Larson kids.

Kids on the couch.

More kids enjoying the deck.

Erling & Anne’s new puppy – Nessa!

A nice “pano” photo.

I hope all you Primos enjoyed this little walk down memory lane. This will likely never happen again but what a wonderful time we all had. Thanks again to Penny & Wilf for hosting such a huge number of folks at their beautiful farm. We love you P&W! 💕