family reunion

this past weekend we traveled to graham, tx for our smith family reunion. this includes just about everyone on my dad's side of the family. we've been having these get togethers since i can remember. i'm sure there was a period of time (those teenage years) when this was a topic of complaint, but truly... not many families do this anymore and it really is special. lance, of course, had to stay at camp and miss the fun... he was really missed... almost to the point of me thinking that i'm not as cool without him or something!

here are some highlights:

we (meaning me, the kids, and maggie who is helping me with the kids for 1/2 the summer) arrived early and went straight to the pool. i'm certain that this resort felt about 20 degrees hotter than the rest of the earth! the kids loved swimming, but allie asked endlessly where everyone else was!

my parents finally arrived which brought smiles all the way around. smiles for the kids b/c it was someone else to play with. smiles for my parents who love their grandkids. and smiles for maggie and i who were ready for a break!

allie and caleb got to meet baby jackie, the newest member of the smith family! isn't she precious! it is hard to believe that she just had open heart surgery four months ago!

this picture shows a little bit of what our cabins looked like. the kids had fun running around and rocking in the rocking chairs!
here is a pic of the four of us after a long HOT day! this is just before we got in the car and headed back so that we could spend time with daddy on father's day! details of that in the next entry!