It's a Family Affair

Last weekend we drove south to La Pine, Oregon for a reunion of my mom's side o' the family.

The best incentive to make the trek was to get to know my brother's new family, a 3-for-1 pack of beautiful blondes who we immediately loved. You just can't see well enough how cute Lisa is in this photo with Darrel (nice knees though); that one of Julia is pretty darn clear, however.



























See that tent behind my mom? If they had known about the 5am near-fistfight amongst my 20-something cousins, they would've backed it into the woods further. Ha!

Jessica (blonde #3) is 15 and a good
conversationalist, but kept
hiding from the camera (fortunately the hood didn't work...)

New favorite
cousin, Sabrina.
Why?
Because she
repeated all of
Edward's
statements in
an annoying
voice. Then
started calling
him Mr. Shirleypants.
I think she might be
trouble but
I like her anyway.


Most of the activity seemed to consist of making, eating, and cleaning up after food, which seemed perfectly natural. Later there was also a Jagermeister component which Edward wisely sidestepped. May have contributed to aforementioned 5 am shouting match. Perhaps.







(I don't think those are Shirley Pants,
but the concept is still unclear to me. Not Edward wearing them, either-
my cousin Brett who had never eaten
hummus before [he liked it.])


There were MANY aunts, uncles and cousins (1st, 2nd, and variously removed from each other) present whom I had not seen in some time, plus more who had married in, or been relatively recently born, or had aged enough to be interesting to talk to.

Unfortunately my cousin Austin, who was recently hit by lightning, came by Friday, so we missed him. (This online paper makes some woefully unsubstantiated claims that he now has super-powers, which I was curious to investigate.)

Old Favorite Cousin, her mom, and siblings were also sadly absent. I was not planning to re-enact the disco choreography (+ cartwheels!) that we forced the families to watch when we were... 8? 10? 12? ...but I was disappointed anyway. Well, you snooze, you lose Tina! Got me a New Fave Cuz now!

Hats off to Carol and Gordon, who hosted/tolerated the shindig in their house (no shoes! unless you're 2!) and cool land abutting a state park (birds of prey in the back yard! fawns in the road!) Many thanks!