Hardy Family Reuinion

I apologize for the lack of blogginess we have exhibited for nearly a month, but we've been vacationing!

During the first weekend of August we drove to northern Arizona near Pinetop for the annual Warren E. Hardy family reunion. Warren Hardy was Casey's great-grandfather. Casey's maternal grandmother was the youngest of 13 children, and his mother, Cheryl has over 50 first cousins on her mother's side! We heard that the total number of descendants there was close to 300. Despite the number of people there, it was remarkably well-organized. There were a few provided meals, sports and games for adults and kids, a karaoke night, a talent show, and even a church meeting on Sunday.

It was our first experience camping with all of our own stuff, and our first time in our tent with Gavin. Let's be honest here, people - I didn't sleep particularly well, because Gavin didn't sleep particularly well. It's not that easy in a tent to get a busy toddler to settle down and go to sleep, and the loud teenagers outside at 2 am didn't help very much. Gavin was busy as usual all weekend, only it was a lot harder for us to keep him clean and relatively sanitary due to the lack of enclosed areas. Cleanliness went out the window, too, when it began to rain - hard - on one of the days we were there. Fortunately, Courtnee (Casey's sister) graciously allowed us all to stand miserably in her fifth-wheel, dripping wet and muddy, whenever it rained. Gavin hated to be holed up, but he LOVED the resulting lake o' mud that ran conveniently through the middle of our camp afterwards. I might not have let him get so messy had Courtnee and Seth not had a shower (and a hose) to clean him up afterward. Thank you SO much, again, Clymers - you were perfect angels!

Let's also be clear on the number of children I brought to this reunion, which was apparently two. I had no idea that Casey would revert back to his childhood when he had the opportunity to go cliff diving with his brothers, or when he pulled out the baseball glove, ball, football and Frisbee, "just in case" his brothers wanted to play. It was fun to watch them and think how much fun they must have had as kids and how they just know that they automatically have playmates when they get together.

We were pretty tired when we got home, but were grateful to spend time with family and happy to have had assistance from family members who took Gavin off our hands when we were about to bury our heads in the mud with madness. Bless you all!

As a last note, let me give a shoutout to the so-called "watermelon" bugs who graced our nightly chats and Courtnee's upper lip.

Action photo: nice dig!

Cousin Corbin