Family Time!

We have been enjoying seeing family from out of town this week -- especially aunty Zizi, uncle Noni, Eli and Adrienne who are visiting from Tennesee. We haven't seen them for over a year and a half so we've been packing in as much visiting in the past week as we can.

We also enjoyed a really great Ward Family Reunion yesterday (the 19th) at the gym at Grandma's church. I think I counted 60 plus people in attendance. We spent about eight hours together eating, playing games, singing, bouncing in the bouncy house, coloring, laughing and checking out the fantastic family albums that cousin Kristina put together (with some help) and some of us even got our kids to nap! I've posted just some of the pages from the album. (first: Grandma and Grandpa Ward, a young grandma Jo on the right; second: The Dennis Ward family - Jason's dad, the first son; third: Jason's (my) page; fourth, the last page in the book - the next picture is of Kristina who did all the work so each family could have a copy! Whew!) We took group photos, when we got there, according to family (grandma and grandpa have six children so those are the families I'm talking about) and quick printed them at Costco and put them in our books so we could have current pictures of almost everyone. Mel, Bill and baby Mackenzie couldn't be there because baby Mack still having chemo treatments (see the link on the LH side for more info) and cousin Danny's family wasn't there either, but almost everyone else was able to make it out. It was fantastic!

Aurelia got reattached to John and Keirsten's kids, Caulin and Colton, so Colton (from Washington) came home with us and will be here for the next week or so and then Caulin will come and visit. I'm excited because it means "free" babysitting for me*I owe Colton a drink ;)* and hopefully the guys have a good time too!

We had Adrienne spend the night this week so the girls could play and they had a lot of fun -- here they are as flower princesses. Of course putting them to bed was difficult. They just didn't want to go to sleep, but finally they did and they made some good memories in the process of all the giggling and playing.

We also took pictures of the Dennis Ward boys' kids -- that's seven kids -- at JCPenney's. Boy was that tough!! I'll be posting those some time in the next few weeks. I'm just excited to have all these great photos to keep and have and show until the next time we can all get together.

I just want to say how thankful I am to have married into such a great family. The Wards (in total) have been so good to me and I'm so thankful that they all love Jesus so much. I so enjoy getting together with Jason's family -- I feel encouraged and loved and I have a lot of fun laughing too. It's nice to be with people who love each other and Christ over all.