We had a reunion last summer after many years of not having one. It wasn't near as organized as most of the suggestions listed above. We plan to have another one this summer. Hopefully better and more innovative this year. Turn out was light last year but hoping for a bigger turn out this summer. We reserved a shelter at one of the local parks and put an ad in the local newspaper giving the date and place. Some people received personal invitations if they lived further away and didn't subscribe to the local newspaper. The ad was costly so probably would have been cheaper to send out invitations to each family. I do family history research so I took along my book for everyone to look at. Then I also made a poster board with wedding pictures of my grandparents, parents and aunts and uncles. Underneath each picture I put their birthdates, wedding dates and if deceased put that date also. Both were a big hit.We had a playground in front of our shelter for the smaller children and was also a swimming beach nearby. Food was potluck and worked out well. People just had fun visiting. Most of the crowd was seniors so I don't think games would have gone over too well at our gathering but I love hearing all the ideas. I took my camera and snapped pictures of each individual family as they arrived. Then we took one group shot but some had already left. I wish I had thought of the group shot earlier in the day. I love the idea of hiring a photographer but that would get too expensive for our group. I also have heard where some reunions each family wears different colored tshirts to identify which group they belong to. We had name tags at our gathering. One other reunion we attended had a notebook on a table as you entered the shelter and you wrote your name, address, email and a memory of your descendants. Everybody could read those notes and next year it will be shared at the next reunion. Also one couple was in charge of pictures and then they posted them to a web site to be shared with the reunion attendees. All the pictures were labeled so if you forgot some names it was a nice reminder. Keep posting ideas. I will be checking to see what other ideas come up.

Out here in the SF Bay Area it is a HUGE thing to take photos of your food. Except for the cheapest greasy spoons, I'm almost never in a restaurant where I don't see someone snapping photos with their cell phones. Since we go out a lot (3-4x/week) at all price levels, it is far from unusual. The more the meal costs, the more flashes are going off, every night. Taking food photos too often goes way beyond the "you two pose together so I can get a shot". People get up from their seats, walk around the table, not even noticing that they are in the way of the waitstaff. The tendency of most restaurateurs to cram in as many tables as possible doesn't help, either. Speaking as a customer, it is one thing to have a small cellphone flash go off. It is another thing entirely for someone to pull out a full-sized digital SLR and start taking flash pictures 2' away from you as you are trying to dine. Nothing like looking up at the wrong moment and getting a massive flash in your eyes as a stranger angles to get a shot of his 2" square of sea bass. Check the restaurant reviews on Yelp and you will find endless shots of food, often the same dishes, posted by various people. I have not yet seen the "stand on a chair" diner but I'm sure I will eventually! I don't mind low-key picture taking. I do it myself, and find it useful to see photos of food before deciding if I want to try a new place (of which there are thousands, where we live). But modern life shows us that there are too many people who go over the line and make it uncomfortable/unpleasant for others, and they simply don't care. If you as a restaurateur want to stop them, then you pretty much have to stop everyone from taking photos. When you get to the high-end restaurants, they don't usually have the same dishes anyway from week to week (sometimes day to day), so any photo is just a general representation of what the food will be like. In that case, a short slideshow on the restaurant's website more than suffices, and more restaurateurs should do that, IMHO.

Credomk, welcome to GW! You're right about getting some great ideas here. Have you thought of painting your furniture for a different look? Maybe you're not finding bedding because the furniture is a little outdated, and the bedding seems 'out of sync' with it. Penney's has some wonderful duvets as well as comforters and bedspreads, and they're not over-priced. Good luck. ;o)

The duct cover for the Zephyr is 10.5" wide by 10.5" deep. Cat_mom's does look a bit beefier. I was thinking about doing the white oval glass tiles just under the cabinets and to the bottom of the hood, then having a light to medium blue paint behind the hood and above the cabinets. I probably shouldn't rush the hood decision with several months to go before project completion. I just hate to pass up a deal, LOL. As of yesterday, I have purchased the fridge column, range, steam oven and undercounter wine fridge, which will soon be sitting in our garage. We don't even have bids from contractors yet (other than custom cabinets), but we have to do the kitchen now. DH likes that I have at least made some decisions and we are more locked into my last design now that appliances of a certain size have been ordered. I have fallen in love with slabs of white quartzite with blue veining, although I will not purchase those until we have a GC and counter sub hired so I can get pricing and they can verify my counters will fit on the 2 slabs. I have been trying to schedule a meeting with the architect for the last few weeks so we can get revised drawings and move onto the bid phase. He seems to have lost some interest in the project since I didn't immediately accept his proposed layout of how our house should look.