Family Reunion

We are finally home.. We pulled into our little home on the hill at around 9pm. It was time to get out of the car.. I told Shelby that I could not listen to the Disney radio channel any more... In fact I told her I'd rather have a knife in my eye. That was when I knew that the magic of traveling was gone. All in all, our family traveled very well together the last few weeks. Our kids are old enough that they generally make the ride in relative quiet... with smatterings of "I need to pee" and occasional "get your feet out of my face!!!" or "Mom.... tell so and so to stop ______insert annoying habit here".... They will watch movies, listen to ipods or sleep. Our teenagers even did some driving along the way.. which lightens the load for us... and allows us to relax some.

After our time in Canada we gathered at Rockaway Beach on the Oregon Coast for the Lyle Reunion. It was the first time that our smaller family of Lyles had a reunion. We rented a beach house.. It was a beautiful, modern house with all the amenities. The only downfall with the layout was it was on 3 levels.. so with 20 people and 5 TV's, 2 kitchens and multiple areas to gather.. you tended to get clustering of groups in certain areas.. and not the large group together very much. Plus the 2 very large sets of stairs made it hard for great grandpa to join us downstairs. But.. we loved the house and actually are considering using it for just our family down the road. It was fully furnished and had all linens, towels, washer/dryer, bathrooms, wireless internet, tv's etc etc etc and best of all VERY CLOSE TO THE BEACH.

The kids had an absolute blast at the beach.. Amanda collected sea shells and sand. She would come home and jacuzzi tub with sand all over her. I cleaned that tub out 12 times at least!!! The kids built sandcastles.. boogie boarded... waded in the cold waves. We had a fire on the beach and roasted marshmellows. We played with Grandma's parachute... It wasn't overly warm .. but it wasn't miserable either. Even my little nephew Charlie, who was very sick crawled out in the sand and cracked a huge smile. We took some beautiful photos with a professional photographer that mom hired... Yeah.. Can you say Christmas Card photo done?

My little nephews are adorable. The cousins all enjoyed playing and the older ones held the little ones.. I have some really happy cousin memories.. so I'm hoping that these kind of times will give my children happy cousin memories. We are so blessed with wonderful cousins on both sides.

We watched some movies that my sister in law brought and relaxed and ate too much junk food.

I didn't get to spend alot of time with my siblings.. and that is a regret. We all live so far apart and we don't keep in touch amazingly well. I'm going to try harder this year to make more of an effort with that. As we get older our time together is precious and chosen. We have to treat it with care and not let the little things bother us.. but cherish the unique and amazing things about each of us that make us who we are. Because we are all very unique.

I purposely stayed the latest at the beach house. I didn't want my parents to have to worry about the clean up and my kids are older and can help more. I finished washing up all the linens and Kris mopped all the floors. Then we sat on the leather couches together and talked about why we don't have expensive furniture. Then I told him that he is the person that makes me the most relaxed!! He is like hypnotherapy.. in a good way..... I guess I'm a weird person.. I analyze and overanalyze each event and chapter of my life. And in my analysis... it was another pretty amazing summer.