Back to reality...

After such a fun weekend bringing in the New Year with Sam's side of the family at a reunion (on his mom's side) we are back home and back to our reality. We stayed at a Christian bible camp called Covenant Harbor a place we had stayed at for the reunion 3 years ago in Lake Geneva, WI. They offered tubing, ice skating, sledding, broom ball... but since the weather heated up to a balmy 50 degrees all the snow and ice was melting so outdoor sports were cancelled. Normally this would be a big disappointment but not this weekend. It actually was nice because it kept everyone together indoors and we got to spend a lot of time together catching up.

Its so hard to explain the closeness of this side of the family to those who can't experience it first hand. So many of us are in the same age brackets and share so much in common. This family is rather large and pretty darn cool. Family members traveled from all over - Idaho, Tennessee, Illinois, Iowa, Pennsylvania, ect... and really make a lot of effort to make it to events like this.

We played games like bunco, had a talent show, ate a ton of food, shared stories, caught up on each others lives, shared a lot of good laughs (and tears), joined in prayer and song together, and just relaxed.

Though Lauren napped great and slept pretty well at night... after staying up late and getting up at a decent hour for breakfast every day I'm tired! This new year started out great so far and I'm looking forward to a wonderful 2011!

The dining room - it seems like we were always eating!

Enjoying strawberry yogurt.

Sam sword fighting with 2nd cousin Olivia.

Lauren loves her daddy. We took a nice walk and much needed fresh air.

The fog was beautiful over Geneva Lake.

Hangin out with grammy and grandpa during pictures.

Lauren seemed to like the doorway jumper.