All in the Family

Evening Shade Ranch

After our wild camping nights in the beautiful Appalachian mountains, Landon and I returned home to Camden, the place where we met and our story truly begins.  We also returned to some of the people who have seen us through the thick and thin, watched us grow and given us a leg up over the years.

Evening Shade Ranch

We arrived at my grandmothers house and unpacked our gear.  We showered up and headed directly to Landon's parents house where a family reunion was brewing.  Landon's grandmother, Lenora (Arizona), and her two sisters, Sandy and Sherry (New Jersey), came in town to spend the fourth at Evening Shade Ranch.  All of Lenora's children, Harold (Florida), David (Landon's father), Glen (West Virginia) and Dianne (Arizona) also joined the group.  Dianne brought her daughter Shelby, Aunt Sherry brought her grandson Josh and Glen drove Landon's sister, Meredith down.  Tiffany, Chris and the boys came up from Charleston with Maya in tow.  Kyndale and Kirkland floated in and out as they moved around work schedules at the local IGA.  All together there were twenty people spanning four generations preparing to spend the next several days touching base with the family core.

Lenora, Sherry & Sandy

Glen, Dianne, David, Harold & Lenora

As an honorary member of this tribe, indoctrinated over twenty years ago, I always enjoy watching and relating to the deep seated relationships between the brothers and sisters.  The way they tease and joke with each other highlights their individual character traits.  The perspectives offered by siblings is universal, yet specific to the family.  It is through these shared memories that the husbands, wives, and children get a sneak peak into the blueprints for the construction of the people we love the most.  We get a better understanding of how they became who they are and the people who shaped them.  It is really a special time and I always walk away feeling inspired, humbled, and in love.

Lenora, Shelby, Josh, Wyatt & Maya

But a family reunion isn't just for older family members to relive their glory days.  There is also the development of relationships between younger members of the family.  While the older generations sit around sharing stories of their youth, the younger members of the family begin to forge relationships of their own, forced to spend large quantities of time together.  Age becomes irrelevant as all the children are lumped together.  This was the case for this reunion as well.  The younger generation ranged from Maya at 19 to Waylon at age 1.  This group became its own pack.  Older children were generous with their time and beyond patient with their younger counterparts.  The younger children looked up to the older ones with adoration, following their every move.

Waylon & Shelby

Shelby & Maya

Maya & Kyndale

Wyatt & Josh

Food is always a center piece of any good family reunion.  As all the master chefs come together in a central location, the best of the best dishes are served up.  When we arrived, Aunt Sherry was working on cupcakes and the sisters had already prepared sausage & peppers and cherry delight.  The kitchen was bustling.  The next day we had a BBQ feast fit for kings.  Chris brought some of his smoked pork butt, David provided brisket, coleslaw and bacon baked beans.  I made my best macaroni and cheese and my worst potato salad.  For dessert, there was orange bundt cake and peanut butter cream cheese brownies.  Aunt Sandy brought Glen's favorite pasta braciole with New Jersey gravy, to include beef and pork meatballs.  On Saturday we wrapped the reunion up with some southern fried chicken.  To give ourselves a break from all the cooking, we decided to have a showdown between KFC and Bojangles and left over pork chops.  The results were inconclusive.

Waylon

Shelby, Josh & Sherry

Specific to this family is also the sports connection.  Many of the people in this family have strong affiliations with specific teams.  Uncle Glen brought WVU shirts down for many as a early Christmas present in response to the USC gear given at the previous Christmas.  Wyatt was not thrilled by the gift and instead almost exclusively wore USC gear for the remainder of the trip.  Probably the most prominent rivalry exists between professional football teams though.  Raiders, Redskins, 49ers, Saints, Chiefs, Cowboys and Rams were all represented at some point.  As a fairly new football fan (term used loosely) I was really torn when I was compensated for technology support via a Rams shirt from Uncle Glen.  I'm afraid Landon may become violently ill when I wear it.  But the rivalries are fun and sports is always a hot topic of conversation around this clan.

Regan & Landon

Glen, Dianne & David

While most of the family found space to stay at the ranch for the duration of the reunion, Landon and I took up residence at my grandmothers house.  This allowed those who had traveled from states away a place to stay in the center of the action.  Because my grandmother's house is a short 15 minute drive, it allowed Landon and I a little room to spread out. 

GG & Jim

We spent the mornings with my aunt GG and her sweeties Jim, Jake and Jake.  For me, this was perfect because there was also time to connect with some of my family roots.  While GG is actually my aunt, we really became more like sisters as we moved into adulthood and had kids close in age.  As we have become older and parents of teenagers, life grew busy and our time together has grown thin.  We stayed a few extra days after the reunion to take care of some car repairs as well spend a little quality time together.  We even got to "help" Jake get a new car.

Jake & Jetta

Spending so much time with family has really been a blessing.  I hope that the time we have spent and the memories we have made will keep us satisfied for a while as we make our international move.  Onward to Atlanta this week!

Side Note- Nearly all pictures on this edition of the blog were taken by Dianne.  She's the only one of us who seems to be able to take pictures at family reunions.  Thank you Dianne! 

You Say Goodbye and I say Hello.

For the first leg of what we have dubbed as our farewell tour, our goodbyes have mainly focused on places and things.  While we have spent some fantastic time with loved ones, we have yet to say goodbye to any one person for real, knowing we have plans to see each other again over the next month or so has brought about a comfort in terms of friends and family.

Landon says goodbye

The first hard goodbye was to our bed.  Landon and I have had the same bed for thirteen years.  That probably is well past the expiration date for a mattress, but it is one we have absolutely loved.  Well.  Minus that small stint after I broke my ankle in which I referred to it as the torture chamber.  There was really no comfortable place to sleep in a cast though, so I suppose it is unfair to let that blame fall on our bed.  In retrospect, I feel kinda bad about that one.  Sorry bed.

Anyway, for anyone who truly know us, I'm more of a "we haven't used that in at least a week- get rid of it" kind of girl and Landon is more of a "I wore this shirt in 1997 so I might want to wear it again- let's keep it" type of person.  Landon has a much harder time letting go and saying these goodbyes.  I suppose this is part of the tricky balance between the two of us.  Once, on a long camping trip, I collapsed our tent around him as he lay sleeping.  It was 7:30 a.m. and I had already packed our entire campsite into the car.  He looked at me like I had lost my mind and with very good reason.  If my drive for the next adventure were to go unchecked, who knows what enjoyments I would miss.  If his nostalgia were left unchecked, you would find us on the next episode of hoarders, but more importantly we might find ourselves missing treasures from our youth.

Goodbye Jeep

So needless to say, this goodbying is already very troublesome for Landon.  We said goodbye to our beloved "Crow's Nest," or as others might know it, our condo on the lake.  We said good by to our Jeep.  We said goodbye to our favorite watering hole, Krafty Draft, where we spent many a Friday afternoons celebrating the end of another work week and welcoming the weekend.  We said goodbye to our gym, Planet Fitness.  We said goodbye to our Publix and Subway.  We said goodbye to many of our favorite places.  We said goodbye to all of our things.  We said goodbye to all of our routines and norms.


Of course with goodbyes also come hellos.  From my perspective, this means we have opened up a whole new world of adventure.  Seeing people, visiting places and the freedom of a nomadic life!  It's right in my wheel house.  So far our farewell tour has been filled with people we care deeply about and visiting places near and dear to our hearts. 

At the Crow's Nest

Our first week of the tour was spent with my sister Whitney and her wife Heather.  We met my mom at the lake for the weekend then traveled to Rock Hill to see my dad for father's day.  We then spent the majority of the week lounging lakeside, playing cards and treating ourselves to intricate dinners.  On Thursday we headed back to Lexington for a night at the Crow's Nest and a day by the pool.

View of the Lake

At Lugoff House of Pizza

Steak & Potato Salad

Landon and I spent Saturday night dancing the night away in Columbia with my friend Becki for her birthday.  We worked on cleaning and packing the condo Sunday and then traveled to Mt. Pleasant to spend a few days with Landon's sister Tiffany, her husband Chris and adorable boys Wyatt and Waylon.  Maya treated us to dinner at her restaurant on Tuesday for her birthday.  I know.  It was weird that we were the ones who ended up with a delicious meal for Maya's birthday while she served us, but it was really cool to see where she works and be flies on the wall of her life for a minute.  She's too good to us.

Mottrams at the Beach

Waylon

Tiff and the Boys

Maya and Waylon

Maya and her friend Jill joined us for a beach day with the boys on Wednesday and we returned the favor with a steak dinner.  Plans for Thursday and Friday fell through as Waylon came down with a virus and needed a little TLC, so Landon and I returned early to finish up at the condo and continue the tour.  We said goodbye to the Crow's Nest on Saturday.  It was a busy, tough day, but rewarded with an impromptu camping trip in the mountains of North Carolina.


In North Carolina, Landon and I took a few days for ourselves to enjoy the beauty of the South.  We explored trails of Dupont State Forest and Pisgah National Forest.  We saw waterfalls and wildlife, but what we tried to fill our eyes with the most was the lush greenery all around.  We realize that in a few short weeks, we will find ourselves in a place filled with desert sands and the world's tallest buildings.  Green might be a color we miss.

Rhododendron

The Blue Ridge - View from Dupont State Forrest

Wildflowers

Green Trails

Bridal Veil Falls

Moore Cove Falls

Looking Glass Falls

Landon Swimming at Looking Glass Falls

On Our Way for Kayaking

Kayaking on the French Broad River

Our Kayaks

As the farewell tour continues, we look forward to spending more time with our friends and family.  With T-42 days and counting, we have just over a month to make each and every goodbye meaningful.  I'm glad Landon will be here to help slow down time.