reunions

I feel that I'm way behind for this post but better late than never. Towards the end of my parents' visit two weeks ago my mom and I headed to Camp Sumatanga to meet up with lots of the Smith family for the annual Smith Family Reunion. This is a four-day weekend with a 50+ year history which has been one of the highlights of my year for as far back in my life as I can remember. As a child it was especially wonderful because the reunion for many of those years was held at Young's by the Sea in Gulf Shores...which was like heaven for me and all my little cousins at the time:) Over the years-before those beach days and after-the location has changed but from my experience and to hear those who made the many reunions before I was even born one thing that has remained constant is the fun and fellowship when this family gets together.

I've already posted Miriam's birthday celebration which took place the first night [Thursday] of the reunion. These two guys (Andy and Michael) were there to help her celebrate...and eat cake.


I regret that I don't have any pictures from Friday... For the most part it was a lazy sort of day. A little before lunch, Miriam and I jogged around the lake. So as not to show her up with my athletic fitness I walked the last little stretch back to the retreat center:) Later on that afternoon while Miriam and Michael took a trip to a nearby town to see a movie I played with two of the youngest cousins at the reunion. These little sisters each had a bottle of bubbles and so I got plenty of bubble-blowing practice! Since those were the highlights you can imagine it was a sort of "slow", but nice, day...

On Saturday morning as we were headed out for breakfast I got a phone call from Claude who had a great surprise. He was on his way to the reunion for the day. His great-uncle Charley and wife Evelyn live in AL right along the way to the reunion and so I drove over to meet the three of them for lunch at Beans and Greens. Laura, can you guess how many times I went back through the line? [They had cobbler for dessert if that helps:) ] This was only my third time to eat at the Beans and Greens but I enjoyed it as much as usual and look forward to our next visit!
















After lunch we got to sit around and chat for just a little bit before heading back to the Smith reunion but were so thankful for such a pleasant mini-reunion of sorts with some of Claude's family:)


Once we got back to Sumatanga it wasn't too long until supper time followed by one of the big events. The majority of the pictures I took are from this famous ( or perhaps infamous ) Saturday night talent show.






Andy, eating a little pizza before the show...


















Hal did a great job as usual emceeing and gave a shout out to his son Davis (..or is it David...) pictured here to the left.











There were of course performances from some of the regulars as well as debut performances.

Some of the regulars... (Patrick, Miriam, and Hailey)

Hula-hoop and yo-yo:

The cutest performance of You Are My
Sunshine you've ever seen:




And a very heart-felt rendering of The Butterbean Song by some truly talented vocalists.
This picture of my Granddaddy was taken during The Butterbean Song because as his grandchildren were growing up he would sing this very song as we sat down to holiday meals featuring what else but butterbeans. The singing of this song was always preceded by strains of "Granddaddy please don't sing that song...don't sing it...are you going to sing it...just don't sing it, please?" and always followed by us crawling under the table and stopping up our ears with our fingers. Just so you won't be too worried most of those grandchildren are today fairly normal and relatively well-adjusted adults so it didn't scar us too badly:)


To round out the end of the show there was a game of Chubby Bunny involving family and general trivia...I don't know who eventually won.




The show did seem to be a bit shorter than usual, but it worked out great because it left more time for 1.) visiting,

The line of people in the background is the swarm that hit the snack table right after the show.















The better looking representatives for Uncle Alan who was working:)
Aunt Gloria, Jennifer, and Corey

With the fabulous Joey
(who just also happens to be
my favorite hairstylist)!

Sweet one-of-a-kind Aunt Libba.

2.) reading,

Who else but my extremely
well-read husband?

and 3.) chocolate cake time with the George Smith group...

Miriam above. Claude and Granddaddy below on the way over from the meeting room.

Andy and Grandmama looking on as Uncle Chris manages his schedule.

The wallflowers.

Andy and Uncle Marty.

Andy crushing his arch-nemesis.Jennifer, me, Jeffrey, Andy, and Miriam.
All of the grandchildren present at this year's reunion. We missed ya'll Sarah, Donny, Thomas, and Jason:)

After eating cake some of us went back over to the meeting room which had become the music room. I left pretty early on to go to sleep but heard that "that Miriam sure could sing." The next morning there was breakfast, a Sunday service, and the packing up of lots of cars headed all different directions. Sadly, it really seems that every year this weekend flies by more quickly. The good news I know it's now only 50 weeks til next time:)

Rachel