Family, Family, Family

I LOVE my family!!! I love my parents, my siblings, my children, my in-laws, my out-laws, etc. etc. etc. You get the picture.

Over the last several weeks we have had the opportunity to go on vacation with Sarah's parents, Andy, Sarah and crew, Miss and Ben and newbie Amelia, and of course, my hubby.

We went the first weekend in June to our annual family Bennett Spring camping sware'. It was miserably HOT, but we still had a great time, soaking up a lot of Ken, Ann, Andy and Sarah's air conditioning in their wonderful cabin......newflash on this for next year later in this post......

We fished, we dreamt of fish, we cooked fish, we ate fish, we played with fish.....well, we FISHED!!! We also fed fish......the girls always love doing that as you throw a few morsels to the huge fish tanks and they all go crazy and look like boiling water. It certainly WAS boiling!!!

Anyway, we capped off the trip with our famous fish fry served with fried potatoes, cinnamon/sugar biscuit balls, watermelon, brownies, etc. etc. The girls put on one of their famous glow in the dark necklace/bracelet shows and it was fantastic as usual. We laughed until we nearly wet our pants....well, speaking for myself, that is.

NEWSFLASH....IT WAS SO HOT THAT LOREN HAS ALREADY RESERVED AN AIRCONDITIONED CABIN FOR US TO STAY IN NEXT YEAR. THIS IS A TURN THAT I THOUGHT I WOULD NEVER WITNESS IN MY 38 YEARS OF MARRIAGE...WOO-HOO!!!

The next weekend involved a driving trip to Hesston, Kansas, where we celebrated with all the Martens Clan at their first ever official family reunion! It was so well planned and run that it was just seamless. We got to see folks we had never seen, hadn't seen a long, long while and some that were RELATIVELY familiar!! What a great family my husband has........I love them all.

At the end of this weekend, we also got the privilege of meeting up with the Wiens side of the family.....that being the family of Loren's biological mom. Now these folks were pretty much unrecognizable to any of us because we have never met them. What a blessing it was that cousin Lois opened her home to all of the Wiens clan so that we could connect, take pictures and enjoy each other. I luckily got to ask some questions about what Loren's mother was like since he doesn't remember much about her. Now THAT was a true blessing. I think I would have LOVED her and hopefully she would have LOVED me......someday I look forward to meeting her in heaven and asking her LOTS of questions......and giving her a big hug!

Loren and I often talk about how fortunate we are to have our kids marry into such WONDERUL families, too. There's the Haskamp Clan and the Greiner Clan and all their extended families. I venture to say that it's not a common occurrence when so many people from so many different parts of the midwest can say that we are all good FRIENDS.......

Thanks to the Martens, Greiner's, Haskamp's, Turley's, Goodliff's, and Staves Clans for calling us FAMILY....... If you haven't gotten together with your family lately, we would highly recommend it. XZD Goat!!!!

Mom