Family!

Pick a summer, any one of my childhood, and we had one staple activity:
The family reunion.
My dad's family had 6 boys, 1 girl.
My mom's had 6 girls, 1 boy.
Needless to say, I had a LOT of cousins.
And, unless under pressure, I can name them all.
Thanks to the family reunions, we developed relationships that have lasted through the years.

Why bring this up?  Because my cousin (one of 2 my age) Marissa and 3 of her 5 children came to visit a couple of weeks ago and I've been thinking about how lucky I am to even know my cousins and have the awesome memories of our family reunions.

The kids had a great time playing, while Marissa and I chatted, joined by Mom and Dad, Stacy, Chris, Brian, Alyson, and Karl.
Thank you for coming!!!

We had a mini reunion with some of my Mom's side the next day.
 We traveled to my mom's only brother's home, my Uncle Fred, who calls me his Angel. 
Here are 4 of the 7...
Aunt Mary, Aunt Alice and her twin, Uncle Fred, and my mom.
She's laughing because something really funny happened that day.  If you really want to know I'll tell you later...just remind me!
We were so happy to see so many of my cousins from different families. 
My kids love to swim at the party, and the drizzle of rain this year didn't change that at all.

And just for fun...here are 5 of the Crook kids when they were kids!