Last weekend, we had our Saffee Family Reunion in Port Huron, Michigan. The reunion took place at my great Uncle Steve’s cabin on Lake Huron and the reunion is for my Grandmother’s (on my Mom’s side) family. My great Grandparents, Grandpa Saffee and Grandma Saffee, came to the U.S. from Lebanon and started their family and new lives in Jefferson City, Missouri. Today, my great Grandfather Saffee’s silk worms that he brought with him from Lebanon are preserved in some official government building in Jeff City, something like City Hall (I can’t remember where exactly, just that they are that important!). They started a clothing store, which is still open today – Saffe’s - and run by some of my Mom’s cousins in college towns throughout Missouri and Kansas. My great grandparents had 7 children – my (great) Aunt Lorraine, Aunt Marguerite, Uncle Ron, Aunt Bonnie, Aunt Julie, Uncle Steve, and my Grandma, Rosalie. They eventually moved up to Michigan but left their oldest daughter, my great Aunt Lorrraine in Missouri with her husband to take over the clothing stores. In Michigan, they opened restaurants and my great Grandpa Saffee ran a mercantile store. The restaurants are no longer around today and the families are spread all over the U.S. from Michigan to California to Florida.
The Tracy clan (my family) all stayed together at a lake house two doors down from my Uncle Steve’s cabins. There were 15 of us stuffed in the house, thank goodness we were only there most days to sleep! My Mom, Nate, Ashley, Emma, Chris, and I arrived on Thursday and stayed through Sunday night. The reunions are always very laid back events but never short on the fun! We spent our days hanging out at my Uncle Steve’s cabins, catching up with family, playing corn hole, hearing old stories from my Grandma and her brothers and sisters, cooking, eating, eating some more, and eating way too much!
Friday night, a group decided we’d go down to the dive bar down the street, the Tally Ho Bar, for karaoke night. There were about 5 locals in the bar and 20 from the Saffee reunion. My family took turns singing and we enjoyed different renditions of “Summer Nights,” “Sexy back,” and a very drunken (and hilarious) version of “Tainted Love” by none other than my brother-in-law. It was a very fun night and the next day, there were lots of people hurting and telling all kinds of stories by the lake!
Saturday night was our Lebanese night and we dined on delicious Lebanese foods from recipes passed down from my great Grandmother Saffee to all my great aunts and uncles. We feasted on grape leaves, tabbouleh, peas and rice (bazale-ma bandora), Syrian bread, kibbee, and baklava. Even Emma enjoyed the grape leaves and couldn’t stop eating them! It was all yummy and my mouth is watering just thinking about it all!
As usual, we all got t-shirts and took family pictures. Each family of the original seven got different colored shirts and the Tracy’s were blue. And of course, the Tracy clan couldn’t stand taking normal pictures and decided we would all jump. I think our goofiness rubbed off on the “elders” and we tried to get them to do the YMCA in their pictures. I like to think we’re a really fun bunch 
The big night of the reunion, the Lebanese dinner night, we counted how many people were in attendance and we had a whooping 76! After dinner, we had a short talent show put on by my younger cousins, who danced and put on a hilarious skit! Later that night, we built a fire, ate s’mores and listened to my Mom’s cousin, Greg, try to sing “Kumbaya.” We also watched a short video from the 1990 reunion and laughed just as hard that night as they did in 1990 at my uncles’ skit. It was a great reunion and I walked away with a Saffee cookbook, photos of my great grandparents from their wedding day, and lots of great memories!
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