Cousins, Cousins, and More Cousins!

You know you have lots of cousins when your daughter has to come ask if "so and so" is her cousin too! And that's the way it is when we go to our family reunion. Joy is getting older now and has pretty much learned who belongs to who, but still yet, someone will show up and sure enough, they are her 3rd cousin or something like that!

Well we had a good time this weekend. My brother and sister-in-law took us to a great Italian Restaurant called Ricatoni's Friday night. They seated us in the loft area, which the kids thought was cool! Their lasagna and bread is SO good! Then Saturday it was off to the family reunion which is always held at a local church fellowship hall/gymnasium in Alabama. The kids all seem to gather at the stage on the right, or the basketball goal on the other end. I think they have the best time, really! I took mostly pictures of the kids this time. I guess it's because they are always willing subjects....you know the adults seem to dodge the camera! :) Here's a few highlights....of lots of cousins! (Warning...there are lots of pictures........again.)

Laci (my brother and SIL's daughter) and Joy:



Sydney and Joy:



The beautiful young ladies all in a row on the edge of the stage.....Sydney, Joy, Tiffany, Jessica, and Laci.



Austin and TJ found them a board game to play:



The teenage girls were much more reserved, you know. That's Tamara, Amber, and Brigette.



Joy and Noah. Noah lives in Indiana, so she only gets to see him about once or twice a year. Too bad they don't live closer, because these two would be the closest of friends. They have always hit it off quite well.



Here's Noah's little sister, Lindsey. She is the baby girl behind three older brothers!



I had quite a time getting a picture of this little guy! This is Jacob. He was a little blessing that came along later in life. His daddy is about 48 or 49 years old! Don't you know he's alot of fun...and keeps them really busy?



Here's my brother's oldest son, Trey, and his wife, Shauna. Trey is 3 months older than Colt and they have always been really close....like brothers. Colt didn't get to come with us to the reunion this year. He had to work all day Saturday.



My nephew, Kemper, came home with us from Alabama for a week. So Joy had another whole week with one of her closest cousins. This is my brother and SIL's middle son, who is just one year older than Joy. So this week has been a busy week trying to do some fun things with them. Let's see....Monday we went to the Incredible Pizza Place. I did a post on this not too long ago. If you've never been to one before, you can think Chuch E. Cheese times about 20 (and the food is WAY better)! It's huge with an all-you-can-eat buffet and games galore for the kids including an indoor go kart track, bumper cars, bowling, mini golf, "motion" movies, table ball games, video games, mini shooting range, and the list goes on. Jason was able to join us for this. They had a great time.







Here they are on the go karts. The second one is Kemper and the 3rd one is Joy.



Then if that wasn't enough, my dad took them fishing when they came home that evening. They caught quite a few, but let them go!

Yesterday, I took them to a museum that also included a visit to the planetarium, an Imax movie of the Grand Canyon, and a big dinosaur exhibit.

Here they are with the lifelike dinosaurs. They were moving and making noises too...very lifelike! They were really kind of creepy to me!







Here they are outside a replica of one of the first Piggly Wiggly stores:



And here they were outside a replica log cabin! I'd like to have one of these in my backyard to decorate or even better sitting on a lot in the mountains as a retreat...except mine would have an indoor bathroom! :)



And you probably know just how much kids can squeeze into one day, so after a supper of homemade pizzas, they decided to swim and "talked" me into going with them. We swam until the mosquitoes decided to visit. Here's some of the fun:













We then came in and watched a marathon of I Love Lucy episodes (from Netflix). Kemper had never seen one before and was a little skeptical, but he stuck with me through all six episodes. Joy made it through five of them before her eyelids got heavy! She just can't take getting very still, snuggled up in front of a TV for very long!

Today will be more low-key. I think we are going to hang around the house and swim and watch movies. Daddy plans to take them fishing again this evening.

Tomorrow is our day to visit our friends (and play bingo with them) at the Nursing Home, so we're taking Kemper along to introduce him. Afterwards, we plan to go out for lunch and possibly visit the Nature Center. And it's amazing how much swimming they can fit in, so unless the rain comes, I imagine the pool will be calling their names again!

Then Friday it's time to meet my brother, Richie, half way, to take Kemper back so he won't miss his dirt bike races for the weekend.

That is what we've been up to this week and why I've been missing in action. And action it is because they're keeping me very busy.

However, during this time, during the late evenings, I have worked on decorating my bathroom, and I hope to FINALLY show you my bathroom pictures in my next post.....so stay tuned!

Have a great day, everyone! :)