Ruth & Evelyn Visit

My dad's two sisters, Aunt Ruth & Aunt Evelyn, came to Colorado for a visit! They had two reasons to come... #1 to see us and where we live now, and #2 to meet a relative we didn't know we had who lives in the Denver area!

But our first order of business involved a little ball and a table. Ping-pong has been a part of my life since I was very young. Our whole extended family plays, and all of my early ping-pong memories took place in Aunt Evelyn's basement. Now, we get to relive those wonderful memories every-other year at our Guvernator reunion in Oklahoma! So much fun...

We all took turns trying to beat Aunt Ruth (who made it known that she is the 6th grade ping-pong champion)! In OUR tournament, she beat everyone except Michael, so we let her carry her title.

Our new-found cousin, Marina, came up one day and brought with her lots of pictures and family stories. It was wonderful to meet her!

Our connection to Marina is not that far off. In a nutshell, her grandfather and my grandfather are 1/2 brothers. Here, let me show you...

Below you will see a photo of my Great Grandmother (Uhr-Oma) and my Great Grandfather (Uhr-Opa). Their names are Eva Schlosser and Jakob Guvernator (pronounced "YAH-cub goov-er-NAH-tor" in Germany... to think, I've been pronouncing my maiden name wrong for 39 years!). Anyway, Eva is Jakob's 2nd wife. His first wife died giving birth to Jakob Jr., the boy on the far left. Eva (shown here) raised him as her own.

Eva and Jakob Sr. went on to have two more children (Marie and Michael) who died in childhood. Then they had Karl, shown standing next to her, and he happens to be my Grandpa. I remember him well.

So there you have it... Marina's grandpa was Jakob Jr., and my grandpa was Karl -- 1/2 brothers. Not so difficult, is it?! The difficult part would be for all of us to start pronouncing our last name correctly! Marina, who has spent much of her life living in Germany, said that we have totally Americanized it!

We welcomed Marina right on into our family and told her that she would be welcome to join us at our next family reunion... I wonder if she likes ping-pong?

Everyone in the picture below is a blood relative of Opa (Jakob Sr.) Guvernator. Neat!

We showed Aunt Ruth & Evelyn a little bit of Evergreen - Morgan even gave them a narrated walking tour around the lake while I took Mason to a dentist appointment. But we spent most of our time right here at home.

Aunt Evelyn was so wonderful with little Maddox. Below you see her teaching him how to make necklaces out of some sort of "flower" (aka: weed) in our yard.

Later, she carried on lengthy phone conversations with him through Lego tubes. Adorable. (notice the necklace?)

And Aunt Ruth taught the boys the finer points of playing Mil (I think that's the name?).

And, of course, we enjoyed our fair share of "Oh Henry" late into the evenings. ...another family tradition!

We thoroughly enjoyed their visit and wished they could've stayed even longer.

Look at Maddox... he truly loves his Great Aunt Evelyn, doesn't he?!

...and so do I! You, too, Aunt Ruth! Thank you so much for coming up - come back soon!

Miki "goov-er-NAH-tor" Force
:)