Smith Family Reunion

Combine 22 grandkids, 17 adults, 8 cars, 4 days, 3 houses (+ a campsite), 1 beach and what do you get? Mayhem or bliss? How 'bout both :). Last week my family had our first (hopefully biannual) family reunion. This was the first time that I was able to see all 8 of my siblings since Boz and I got married! Even at our wedding, though, not all my nieces and nephews got to be there. There are many more little ones now too! In total, all 39 of us were at this reunion (40 if you count Elisa's new little bun in the oven-CONGRATS)! It was AWESOME! Needless to say, I love my family! Here are some of the highlights from our adventure (some pictures are courtesy of my sister Elisa)

The Original Smith Family. Top:(left to right) Elisa, Marissa, center: Jennie, Dad, Mom, Stephanie, me, bottom: Amy, Matthew, Jacob, Rachel.

All of us: We coordinated colors by family, can you tell?

Kids Kraft: Tons of fun, we made kites, painted quilt squares, decorated little foam visors, and made sand bucket treats (using cupcakes, pudding, and crushed graham crackers as sand, very cute).
The Amazing Fight, I mean Race :). Basically, we were divided into teams and set out on a big fun scavenger hunt. A little harmless competition that ended in some heated battling, hehe, classic! (Timmy and Elyette look pretty cute in their shades huh?-this was for one of the hunt finds)

Girls/Guys Night: Boys watched movies (the boys continued some fun with a sort of "white elephant" with several awesome tools my dad was giving away to them) and we girls beautified some flipflops, ate chocolate, painted nails, made hair beads, and I even got to cut my mom and sister Jennie's hair (thanks ladies).

THE BEACH! The weather was so nice for us. The first day was clear and gorgeous. The second day was the same, but got increasingly windy. We never brought our camera down to the beach so thanks Elisa for the pics of everyone huddling from the wind and the weenie roast. The weeny roast was memorable :). It took a wall of sand and quit some dedicated time to get the fire going. The winds were so high that we basically all got some "crunchy" hot dogs. It was totally fun though, in fact, the weenie roast is one thing Elyette kept talking about several days later.
And lastly... Cousins!
Cousins!!
Cousins!!!

The kids were in absolute heaven with all their cousins. Jack and Samuel were two happy baby boys that were very cute together and we hardly saw Elyette cause she was so busy running around with all her cousins, wearing the hugest smile.She loved picking up petite little Jackie (she's almost 4 months older than Jack). It looks like perhaps Jack was her previous victim. :(