What happens at the reunion, stays at the reunion… some of what we did and said (and photographed) will never show up on the internet. It was all great fun stuff though.
It was held at O’Bannon Woods State Park in Corydon, IN… not too far from Louisville, KY. We arrived on Thursday a little before dinner time. It was good to get there at that time. We visited and talked while we were dragging our luggage and sleeping bags to the cabins we’d be sleeping in and the food we brought up to the kitchen area. That night, after kids were in bed, we had a game of Apple to Apples. It was my first time playing, but it was a lot of fun.
On Friday, more people were showing up in the morning and afternoon. Just before lunch, I went into the cabin that we were sharing with my sister’s family to grab my camera and saw some of the kids in there starting to jump on the beds. I told them not to do that and then left to see if I could get a picture of a fawn that my aunt had seen passing by our camp area. We went looking for it, but didn’t find it. I did get a picture of a butterfly though. When we got back, the camp was in an uproar. Apparently, some of the kids had went ahead and jumped on the beds and my 4 yr old niece fell and hit the back of her head on the corner of the metal bedframe. The aunt I was with was a veterinarian’s assistant… so she’s had medical training and one of my cousins is a nurse. The two of them checked N’s head and got it cleaned and shaved the area to try and put butterfly bandaids on it, but the swelling made it impossible, so off to the hospital they went: N, her dad, and two of my cousins (one was the nurse). My sister stayed to comfort T who had seen it happen and was afraid her sister’s head was going to fall off. It was more traumatic for her, I think. After lunch, they got all the kids ready for swimming to help take their minds off of it. I stayed behind because I was worn out and needed a nap and my sweet baby nephew was napping too. I offered to keep an ear out for him. When he got up, I put his little bathing suit on and he got to go swimming in one of the big huge sinks in the kitchen. It started having some thunder in the distance and the pool was closed, so the other kids came back, but when there was no more lightening, we let them play out in the rain. They really seemed to enjoy it. In the evening, we split into two groups and had family Olympic games. My uncle came up with some really crazy games that both adults and little ones enjoyed. That night, after the little ones were in bed, we played Moods. If you’ve never played it, it is way too fun. You need a group of adults, as it isn’t really for children. After most everybody had gone to bed, my brother-in-law and two of my cousins and I stayed up and played some pass the cup games.
Saturday was nice and cool. A few of us made a run to Walmart for some drinks and other necessary items. After lunch, we headed over the the nature center and walked around there a bit. The bulls they have there are named Forrest and Gump. My brother and I thought that was funny. The last of our family showed up that afternoon during dinner and had 3 dogs with him. The kids all went running out leaving plates of food sitting on the table to go see the dogs. They came back to finish eating, but we all thought it was so funny that they all just up and left to see the dogs. After dinner, we had our talent show. My kids did two of their Praise Dance songs. I played flute with four others. The dogs did tricks. T molded some play-do for us and N sang a song with her daddy. We had Abbot and Costello’s “Who’s on First” routine, the song “Sisters” from the movie “White Christmas”, a few recitations, and ended with a hilarious play. Our game that night was Spoons. We don’t change the cards we have to get or do eliminations… our twist is that whoever won that round gets to pick something for the person who had no spoon to do. It usually ends up being something silly.
On Sunday, we started the day with Jeremy and I making breakfast… er, wait.. our alarm didn’t go off, so we were up later than we planned and my mom heated up what I had made to have for that meal. Thankfully, that was all we needed to do. I love preparing the food beforehand… makes it much easier to fix when the time comes. I had made two 9×13 quiches. One was just sausage and potato. I called it the picky eaters quiche. The other one had ham, red and green and yellow bell peppers, tomatoes, and a bit of potato. Both had lots and lots of cheese and eggs (or course… or it’s not quiche.) I had also picked up some little cereal boxes and some coffee cakes to complete the meal. After breakfast, we had our Sunday service: singing, a devotional, and some sharing time. After lunch, some of our family who had work on Monday left us. Most of the rest of us went swimming and though I didn’t really get to swim, I did enjoy taking pictures. I was watching the little kids most of the time. I also forgot to put on sunscreen so I ended up burnt. After dinner, a bunch of us went hiking. It was a beautiful place for a hike, but the lighting was getting too dim to get some of the pictures I really wish I could have gotten. That night, Jeremy and I cleaned up a lot of our stuff and packed what we could into the van. After that, I joined my sister who was playing with a computer program. We had some good laughs with it. That night was an early night for us as the rest of us were leaving the next day.
Monday was a hectic, clean-up and pack-up day. Jeremy and I had breakfast and then got the rest of the stuff into the van. We helped clean up some of the camp before heading out. We met with Jeremy’s mom and Sarah on the way back and dropped off Noelle and Christine with them. We got home about half an hour before AnnaBeth’s ballet class.
All in all, it was a lot of fun, except for chigger bites, finding ticks on all of us who went hiking, and N’s head wound. I now have 425 pictures to go through to figure out which ones I can put up and which ones will be left off and kept put away except for those times we like to pull them out for a good laugh with the family. That’s not all the pictures I took. I took a good amount more, but those are the ones I kept. Anyway, that was the overview of our reunion. I wish I could tell you all just how lovely it is to spend this time with my crazy family. They are all Christians and it is so wonderful to have nice, clean fun. Well, clean most of the time… right, Katie? *wink*