Only a Mama knows: Family Reunion Visit

Tuesday, October 10, 2023

Family Reunion Visit

My dad, older sister Robyn with her husband Will and daughter Annalynn, as well as my brother Matt and his wife Erica and two kiddos Madalynn and Kaladin, all planned a trip out to WA from the East Coast to see us.

This would be the first time us siblings would all be together since 2013. Well, almost all of us. My younger sister Sarah couldn't make it, unfortunately. Because my brother and sister and their families were coming to visit, I had a handful of extended family that lives in WA that wanted to make the drive to our home to visit as well. My East Coast family were only here for a few days, and my family driving in were only here for one, so we had to make our time count. This would be as close to a family reunion we would probably ever get.

We had a large family gathering on the 7th. My mom, dad, sister and her family, brother and his family, grandmother, three aunts, and a few cousins showed up for a day of visiting. We got super lucky with gorgeous weather that let us be outside all day.

We took everyone around for a tour, visiting the goats, garden, etc. We ate a huge spread of food, played with smoke bombs and sparklers, even got to fly a drone my cousin's boyfriend brought! He caught some amazing arial photos of our homestead that I'm really excited about. We made sure to get everyone who wasn't already done marked on our family height board too. That was special for me. We even managed to get a few group photos!! (though I haven't received those yet....once I do, I'll come back and add them to the post).

All in all it was an amazing day that I wish could have lasted longer. I'm not sure when we'll be able to do something like that again, if ever. The day went by far too fast and I didn't get as many photos as I wanted because I wanted to be in the moment and not be worried about running around taking photos like I normally do. So the photos I do have came from everyone else who happened to take some photos. I regret not taking photos of my own, but it was nice in the moment not to worry about it.

On the 8th, after my WA family hit the road, we took my sister, brother, and their families to the pumpkin patch! The kids all had a great time. We played, picked out pumpkins, hit the corn pit, and did the corn maze before being too pooped out and hot to do anything else. I was thankful to not only get a group photo of all of us, but one of all the cousins as well!

During their visit, we also had to make sure to pick the pumpkins in our little pumpkin patch! The littles sure did love that!

Also on the must-do list, recreating a photo we took years ago of Anthony, Molly, Timothy, and Madalynn. My brother and his family came out to visit back in 2017 I believe, and we took a sweet photo of them in a wagon. I knew we had to recreate it! First with adding Kaladin in the photo, and then the original.