Family Fun

Yesterday my family drove up to Maryland for a family reunion. We got to see many people who we haven't seen since Mom and Mike got married. We also met lots of new people in our family. Our sister, Cameron, came too so it was great getting to spend the day with her! Aunt Claire and our cousin Jeremy (in the picture to the right) were pretending to be pirates for most of the time. They even wore eye patches and shot people with bubble guns!

This is Kelly. She looks really cute. In reality, her cuteness is only a manipulative cover for her true self. When a water fight broke out among the crowd, she sort of single-handedly spearheaded the movement. While the older kids would exuberantly bombard you with bottles or even buckets of water, Kelly would quietly walk up with a deceptively adorable smile.

Then she would unleash her weapon, water balloons that weren't yet closed and could, therefore, be used over and over and over again. She achieved many successes and soaked many unsuspecting adults who, at first glance, simply thought she was cute.

We tried to go swimming at the neighborhood pool but quickly discovered that their definition of swimming is "a controlled, boring action that involves getting wet and having no fun." The list of rules was unbelievable. For example:

Dumb Rule #1 only 5 people can go in to the pool area, even if person #6 is Grandma who simply wants to watch her grandchildren swim.

Dumb Rule #2 you can only swim in one direction. Do not change directions.

Dumb Rule #3 no jumping.

Dumb Rule #4 no splashing.

Dumb Rule #5 do not bring anything to the pool to play with, including all floating things, balls, frisbees, etc.

Dumb Rule #6 you cannot bring any water or other liquids in the pool area. (Apparently they haven't heard that the #1 cause of dehydration during swimming is not drinking enough water.)

Uncle Gary went up to the lifeguards and asked them, "Are we allowed to get wet?" So anyway, swimming didn't last long.

This is Grandma Jo. She had a great time. Like Kelly, she was very sneaky but equally involved in turning dry people in to wet people. You'd think you'd be safe standing next to a grandmother but then a second later she's hurling a water balloon at you or dumping a bottle of water on your head.

And this adorable little guy, who was not deceptive or manipulative with water balloons in any way is our cousin Bradley. He thought just about everything was hilarious except when he got splashed with water. He didn't find that amusing at all.

It was a great weekend of fun, meeting new people and catching up with people we haven't seen in a long time!