Living the life God intended...

Living the life God intended...

Wednesday, August 8, 2012

Country roads….take me home: 2012 VanCamp / Gillispie Family Reunion

     About a week ago, we headed home (West Virginia) to see family and take part in a fabulous, “memory lane” VanCamp/Gillispie family reunion coordinated by our cousin Lois.  As always, she did an amazing job planning, preparing, and having everything “fun” for the kids, especially since I am the youngest of the youngest on my dad’s side, i.e. lots of  “older” cousins.  Well, as you can see, all the “older” cousins have had children and gave our “younger” cousins awesome playmates to lookup to!  The kids thought the teens/young adults were fabulous!  I am sure this week of hundreds of pictures will be posted in a couple of posts!  Bear with us!

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The week was filled with the outdoors, fishing (first-timers), storms and power outages, lots and lots of deer, reading, playing, cooking, geocaching, family and friends visits on both Matt and my sides, hiking, smores, fireworks, playgrounds, 8hours of screaming baby in the Odyssey, visiting childhood schools and homes, Camden Park (you have to be from WV to understand), and the most fabulous reunion locale ever!  Stay tuned and enjoy our trip!

 

There are no pictures from the ride there…I wanted to be creative and get some pics of the welcome to WV sign on the road, but Lily had other ideas and screamed, seriously, for 8 hours straight!  Her first long trip was not a success, notice the look on Daddy’s face in the above pic…he was very relieved to be out of the scream tank!

We stayed in cabins at Beech Fork State Park in Barboursville, WV and that’s about as close to camping as we get around here!  Our cabin had “Johnny’s (my dad) kids.”  So it was our family and the Bobbits ( Amy, Joe, Mad, and Mikey.)  The boys were soooo excited! 

Here is roughing it for the Ireland family…pretty nice for a little WV state park!

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The deer had no problem hanging out right by the cabins…this was our daily breakfast company!

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The kids were amazed by the mountains, we were right back at home with the view from the deck!

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Car weary, but ready to go!

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So not in the mood for more pictures!  They were ready to go to Lois’s cabin and start the playing/visiting with the cousins! 

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So the first night, we all ate at the “Hansen" cabin with yummy Santa Fe soup…oh my was it good!  We did lots of visiting although we were all tired!

Making magnet picture frames which with boys ended up holding machetes with fish on the end and crazy afros and you name whatever else!

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Lily getting loved on…after destroying mommy’s shirt with her dinner!

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And the evening ended with a the women talking and Lily learning what it means to be in our family…I think she was more than over it with all the energy it took to cry for 8 hours! It was a nice but short visit, but the next day we had BIG plans…fishing!

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