I’ve been thinking a lot about family recently.

The joining of families and what constitutes family.

In my mind, there are several types of families — specifically, the one you choose and the one that is chosen for you.

Each summer, on the first Sunday in August, we have a huge family reunion at my parents’ farm. Before it was my parents’ farm, it was my grandpa’s farm. The family reunion has been going on for close to 60 years now, and almost all of them have been at the farm.

Every year, rain or shine, people show up. Some years are bigger than others. Sometimes we get more than 150 people. Sometimes it’s only 50 or 60.

Our family reunions have turned into a big event. This isn’t a nerdy type family reunion, where everyone is wearing matching shirts while having boring conversations with great aunt Mildred. Our reunions are wild and boisterous and involve cross-dressing games, but more on that later.

This particular family reunion has evolved from a one-day potluck to a four-day event, with campers and tents arriving in the middle of the week, filling evenings with barbecues, games (“Apples to Apples” and “Left, Right, Center” are the most popular) and of course like any good Polish family — booze.

Every year on the Saturday, we float the Deschutes River, rain or shine. I have done it in the rain — it’s not so bad actually. I mean wet is wet. This year, although not super hot in Olympia, there was some sun, so we didn’t freeze.

Then of course, there is the day of the family reunion, which still involves the potluck, but also raffles and embarrassing warm-the-crowd-up activities. This year, those activities involved having three men up front who then were handed a bag and told to put on what was in the bag with the help of their assistants. You haven’t laughed until you watch two uncles and a cousin (two are husky guys) put on old ladies’ clothes, complete with balloons filling the bra. My cousin said she would be traumatized for years after having to adjust her dad’s “cleavage.”

We still do the same old school activities that have been done at the picnic for years, including three-legged races and water ballon tossing.

However, the point of this isn’t to make you jealous of how awesome my family is and how we have the coolest reunions. Remember what I said about the family you choose? This family reunion isn’t even technically my family. My “grandpa” wasn’t actually my biological grandfather; rather, he was my next door neighbor (my parents rented the second house on the farm for years before buying it) and he was my godfather. Not in a mobster sense — my godfather in the “he was there at my christening” sense. The family reunion is with his family, and my whole family has gone for as long as I can remember. Several years ago we were “adopted in,” with snazzy certificates and everything, so it’s totally legit.

In this family, I have plenty of aunts and uncles and friends that, over the years, we have just found it easier to introduce one another to outsiders as cousins.

There are plenty of types of families. Family sticks with you through thick and thin. Family can be your best friends, your parents’ friends who have been called aunt or uncle for years, or your siblings’ friends who drove you just as nuts as your actual sibling growing up.

Family is what you make of it. Be it blood or not, family sticks with you through the hard times and celebrates in the good times. So find your family and celebrate it.