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!