Reunited and it feels so Good.

As I mentioned in my previous post, Chris come from a very large family, and on Saturday, July 4th, we drove straight in from vacation to join the family reunion in full swing.

Chris' and Noel's combined expressions really display what I was thinking when we arrived better than I can covey in words on the blog.
Here we are for the big family photo. Keep in mind this is just the matriarch, Grandma Ruth, and her kids, grand kids, and great grand kids plus applicable spouses. You should see this event when the extended family is involved. Amazingly, all fourteen kids were here this year and most of the grandchildren. You can find Chase front row center fighting with his cousin Warren whom he has spent the week with and they had mutually had enough of each other.

Here we are assembling for the annual photo. This year I would estimate it only took 20 minutes from beginning to end. Believe me, that is record time for this crew.

Here is our tired, little, festive family. I thought it would be so cool to have our festive 4th of July shirts, but this is the only time all of us were together from the time we arrived until we left that evening.

Each of the original 14 were required to learn to play a musical instrument. That musical interest has trickled down to future generations including my son, who asks at least once a week for a drum set. One of the cousin's band put on a concert for our dinnertime entertainment and once they were finished Chase got to check out the drums first hand.

All in all, it was a loud assortment of children, grown-ups, and dogs with tons of food, water balloons and fireworks. I have to admit, though I find it hard to get geared up for this event every year, that I can't think of a better way to celebrate Independence Day. I feel like our country's four fathers might look down on our motley crew smiling and say, "Yeah, that's what we were talking about right there." We are blessed by the courage they had so long ago and our brave Service men and women still have today.