Paton Family Reunion

This is my tall, thin, blonde, gorgeous LITTLE sister. Nope folks, genetics are not fair but it is what it is!!! ;o) I was SOOOO excited to get to see her again. Here's the story...

Near the beginning of August, my sister and her husband and kids, as well as my brother and then, of course, the six of us, met in Tacoma with my parents and we were all together for the first time in I'm not sure how long...maybe since my wedding?! It was so great to see everyone and to laugh and joke like the good 'ol days! My brother and his wife (who was unable to attend) live in Colorado and my sister and her husband live in Ohio - in fact, they've been married for awhile now and we had still never even met Jeremy! Life stinks when it takes you all over the map to live and doesn't leave you with enough money to get back to each other very often! I was able to go up for the whole week to be with my family and David came up Friday after work and had to leave Sunday night to be back to work on Monday.

We had a fabulous time. We ate SO much awesome food (thanks, parents!) and laughed until I almost peed! :) Jeanine and I went through boxes upon boxes of old pictures that have been sitting in my dad's garage for years and found many wonderful treasures...yes, the big bang pictures are coming soon and I'm not talking about the cosmic theory! Anyway, it was fun to reminisce and wonder what old friends are doing now and wondering why our mom let us out of the house wearing some of the things we wore! WOW!

Kade (my sister's son) had his birthday while they were here so his dad threw a huge BBQ party for him that was tons of fun. One day Jeanine, Jeremy, Kade, and Ryen drove down with dad and Chris to our little town so that we could show them around here. Of course that meant going to the ocean, too! Can't do that enough! It was just a marvelous time and wonderful to be near family again. I'll let my pix do the rest of the talking...

K, I'll just tell you right now that these got all out of order and the computer's giving me nothing but fits trying to rearrange so I'm giving up and you'll just have to look at them this way. Sorry! This is at the beach - my sister and her husband went for a romantic walk in the sand and my stepmom and I played with all the kids for awhile. This is me helping Ryen fly a kite.
Savannah shows Ryen how it's done!

This is at a family get together at my mom's house. Her backyard is perfect for entertaining!
See, David WAS there! That's my dad, David, and my stepdad, Joe, at Kade's birthday party.
Here's my crazy step-family. They fit right in, don't they?!
Ok, this is a little better. That's my dad, Chris, Ariel, Brett, and Luke.

Savannah walking out to the water.

Jeanine and Jeremy coming back from their walk - the fog was really moving in!!!!

See! We may not look alike, but you can tell she's really my sister by the camera in front of her face! KIN!
Jeremy and Ryen checking out some waves.
Meg, Lindsay, Scotlyn, and Kade are trying to jump over the waves...good luck!
Chris with Ryen. SO cute!
Ryen flies the kite by herself! You go girl!

Jeremy grilled some AWESOME steaks for us one night. Jeanine pretended she was helping! ;o)
Ryen and Savannah became fast friends. You can see how the tall gene is only in my sister's blood - Ryen is actually 1 month and 1 day YOUNGER than Savannah! Scotlyn and Kade climbed driftwood at the beach.
Running out to enjoy the water.

My mom has this fantastic garden in her backyard. Here is a peapod she grew her very own self - and Scotlyn helped plant earlier in the summer!
For better or worse (sometimes both!) this is my family (minus David - he wasn't here yet!). From left to right: Jeremy, Jeanine, my brother Kenny standing behind, my mom Jana, my dad Ken, and me!
Kade and Scotlyn are good buddies and always pick up right where they left off even though they don't see each other for long intervals in between. Here they are being silly at my mom's house. Kade is 11 months older than Scotlyn.

Oooooh, Jeanine! DENIED!!!!

Lindsay on the slide during Kade's birthday party. That's all folks! Hopefully it won't be so long before I can post again! Hugs, Ruth