How to remember your family

The last couple of weeks have been all about family time, and we’ve loved all the minutes of belly laughs, squeezy hugs, cutthroat games, late-night excursions, off key caroling (just me, my family is more talented), stuffing our guts, catching up, and repeating.

My favorite quote from the weekend was from my seven-year-old son, who said, “Don’t expect me to remember all of my cousins since I have so much.” He has 58 (yes, I had to stop for several minutes to count) cousins. That doesn’t even include cousins with kids, which is a healthy number because he has cousins who are the same age as us parentals (aka old).

Maybe this post will help him remember. Here are some pictures from my family reunion. Retain, my son, retain.

There's more than one type of smooth move.

Cousins

My sister

My dad and twinner and I

Most of the family reunioners.

Calm down, kids.

Hard to know who this is, but I think we're related.

Adult cousins

Kid cousins

On a haunted house expedition. Gatlinburg has those all year long, not just during Halloween.

Our meeting room had a disco ball. It was not wasted.

And an untouchable piano that we immediately touched.

So happy about life when opening presents.

Taking naps in between domino turns, circa 3 a.m.

My new favorite family photo.

Does anyone else agree that this is the worst name for a loyalty club ever?

The Stay Away Club. Huh?

And we went for one run during our time there. My brother was my running partner, as usual, but we added our niece to the crew for three of our miles. It was awesome to have a new recruit. 

Brrrr, I had to cut it short because of the cold. I'm a wimp.

Do you ever play dominoes with your family? 

What would you name your loyalty club? The Stay Away Club? I would probably opt for Don't Ever Come Here Club. It's more direct.

Do you have family reunions? Where? How often? Amory's family has their reunion in KY every other year. My family has a reunion every year around Christmas, sometimes in TN and sometimes in IN.

Have you ever cut a cold run short? You guys are probably a lot tougher than me in the cold. Also, having gloves would have helped. My hands lost feeling for hours afterwards.