Fun, Food and Family

In this house, family is a big deal. Our immediate family, our extended family and the friends that we love so much they get "lump into" family, are our life line. Without family we'd be virtually no where, we'd have no support system, no unconditional love (God aside, of course!), no ridiculous amounts of teasing and no fabulous and exhausting family weekends.

As a kid, once a year at least my Dad's family would all get together. To put it simply there are a who crap load of us and we'd all congregate, usually at my parents house, for a long weekend to play crib, shoot the breeze and of course, eat copious amounts of food that's not really as good for you as you'd like to tell your brain it is. Some of my (and my brother's) best memories stem from those weekends. It was time that as little kids we felt important, as teenagers we were made to feel included as adults and as with any family get together enough teasing to last us through to the next visit.


As time has passed, those weekends fell to the way side and then slow morphed into golf weekends. Time, money, and the huge lack of interest in golf have prevented Corey and I from attending the past few years. This year however my Mom and Dad, took matters into their own hands.

They planned and executed a great weekend here in The Wack for us all. Complete with a little golf (boooooooooooo, although Corey did play and had fun!!!), a baseball game - tradition at it's best, lots of visiting, kiddie pools to keep cool and of course the above mentioned, less than hip friendly munchies. Although in my Mom's defense, there was a lot of other healthier alternatives, like 4 watermelons.

Taking on a weekend like this is a job, a career even in it's self. You see, as time as worn on that crap load of people has expanded, grandchildren, cousins, great grandchildren and spouses all added to the mix and their backyard seemed knee deep in people.

When we were kids my brother and I were the youngest of the cousins and were quite often the only kids around. And as much as the adults included us we longed for cousins the same age. Audrey and Bethany do not have that problem. Cole and Beth are 1 month apart as are Audrey and Peyton. Add to that another 5 kids and children were seen and heard everywhere. It was great!! Beth especially loved have "all those guys" to play with. She and "Cool" got along great and were hardly seen too far apart. Great friendships and bonds were born this past weekend. Ones that have left us all looking forward to next year.

Thanks Mom and Dad for the hard work! It was greatly appreciated and hugely enjoyed!