Family Matters

Each year for as long as I can remember, I have attended a family reunion. Well...most years. I have missed a few along the way but there was no sleep lost by any party over my absence. A bit of housekeeping...for the purposes of this blog posting when I make reference to family, I am referring to my mom's side of the family. For years we would all load up each July and make the journey over to a reunion in Ft. Payne, AL because that is where my grandfather is from. It's ok that my grandfather is from Alabama since my grandmother is from Georgia...all of their offspring and their dependents have the correct number of fingers and toes. But then for whatever reason we stopped going. Maybe it's because the majority of the people present was all of us and it was a little silly to drive 3 hours one way to have lunch together when we all lived less than 25 minutes from each other. For a few years now my grandmother's family has had a reunion and it's always the 3rd Sunday in September. This happened to be yesterday for those of you not keeping up with the calendar. Like many families in the South, not very many people have actually left the area so I get a little confused as to why we have a reunion when you see these people at the grocery store on a semi-regular basis, but who am I to question proper reunion protocol. Especially when I'm one of the ones who "went to college and didn't come back home". I usually spend the majority of my time at these events asking other members of my immediate family questions like "who is that?". For instance... Cousin Eddie?? Is that you? (please get my Christmas Vacation reference here, people) And don't be alarmed, there is no problem with this car...it's just got a really rockin' engine. Or something. And for the record, I really have no clue who these people are. My theory is that they are just random joes who heard that my grandmother was making her chicken and cornbread casserole and decided to crash the family reunion. Like Wedding Crashers. But not really at all.

I enjoy going to family reunions though because it gives me a chance to see my aunts, uncles and cousins since I don't get to see them as often as I would like. I love these people. They are my family and family is something that I treasure. I realize that our family is very fortunate in the sense that we all enjoy each other's company. We don't dread holidays. We call each other on the phone just to check in. Now that is not to say that my family is this idyllic little group of people that never encounters any adversity. Like all other families, there has been illness and divorce and other struggles. Some refer to this as life. But we stick by and love each other through it all. It also helps that these people are funny. If they were all residents of dullsville, I would have removed them from my Christmas card list long ago. Not really. And even if we don't end up this way, we all start out as really cute. I mean, seriously...Sophie and Emma are especially cute with their wind-blown Jeep hair. Emma is the most loving little girl I've ever met while her baby sister, Sophie is full of spunk. Just look at her in that picture...I think she's about to throw her fork at someone. Bailey is very serious, but seriously silly when she lets herself relax. Hmm...I think that runs in the family. And her little brother, Zach is a live-wire going in about a thousand different directions at once. I just love little boys. Here he is with his dad and my cousin Kasey showing my uncle Bill how to use a cell phone. I'm not really surprised that Bill needed a tutorial given that he is an Alabama graduate. Even though he is a grandchild and not a great-grandchild like the other kiddos featured here, Micah is still pretty cute. I hope that pre-adolescence attitude stays away just a little longer.And finally the baby...I can't forget the baby of our family. I don't know very many 15 month olds who already have their own dirt bike, but Garrett does...And in the event of a complete economic melt-down, my cousin Kyle, Garrett's dad, will be appearing in a circus side show as the tall man on a little dirt bike in order to bring home additional income. Finally, Cash also got in on the family reunion action this weekend. He got to meet Kyle and Karen's chocolate Lab, Grady...Apparently eating pine straw is the preferred bonding activity among Labrador Retrievers. Cash was only slightly intimidated by Grady's 118-pound size and stature. If Cash ever gets that big, I'm in big trouble.

Edited to add: Correction...it's the 4th Sunday in September. No wonder my whole career as a math teacher never worked out.