25 Years In The Making

A brief family history lesson for those of you who don't know. There are 5 siblings in my family, and due to various life occurrences and miscellaneous reasons, the 5 of us have not been all together for anything other than funerals and weddings in over 25 years (we are all spread out around the country). We finally decided we were long over due for a sibling reunion and for the past couple of years we have been trying to coordinate and plan a vacation destination where we could all meet. The original plan was Disney World, but then we decided it would be too chaotic and we would hardly have time spent all together amidst all the Disney craziness. We wanted some place where we could just hang out together, something relaxing, easy and fun. Ultimately we were reminded that our dad lives in a house on a pond that would allow us to do just that...so our vacation destination ended up being the home town where we all grew up.

For the past 7 days we have jam packed as many memories as we possibly could, taking advantage of our time together, as who knows when the next time will be when we can do it again (here's hoping its not another 25 years!!).

A lot of time was spent just hanging out at the pond. Lots of swimming, paddle boarding, kayaking, game playing, camp-fire story-telling/song-singing, art lessons, jam sessions, charades, bonding...

Grandpa with all of his grandchildren...first time ever

The "teen-angels" enjoyed their afternoon art sessions with Margaret

Brandy got her traditional New England lobster dinner

To anyone who remembers the infamous vhs tape out there with the 5 of us walking down the stairs singing "The Sound Of Music"....of course we had to reenact it!!

We also went on a few excursions as well:

A whale watch (we actually saw a couple of whales jump out of the water and at one point we had five whales swimming straight toward us...of course none of which I was actually able to catch on camera. It was the most whale action I have ever seen on one of these rides):

We had a bowling/ice-cream day (Logan won the first game, I won the second...not that I'm bragging or anything....):

We had a picnic dinner and danced at a free concert on the waterfront (the band even played Hunter's favorite song "Shut up and dance"):

We spent a day on the beach (dove into waves, played some catch, built some sand castles):

And the 5 siblings had a night out with just us...lots of reminiscing and re-connecting:

It was a long and exhausting (figuring out how to feed, transport and entertain 12 + people for a week can get tiring), yet amazing week.  I have been blessed with the most wonderful family; and although I am feeling very sad today now that everyone is headed home, I am so grateful that we were able to spend this week together.