December Daily - Day 18

We went out to Abbotsford last night so todays story came easily.

It's all about family!

Dave and his family flew in from Edmonton in the morning which was the main reason for the gathering. It was the first time in about 3 years that all of us had been together. Dave has 2 girls, Makenna (8) and Kole (6), so our girls had a few hours bonding time with their girl cousins before the hordes arrived. Don and Ina were given a massive doll house for the grandchildren to play with and the 5 girls had a blast with it.

After lunch Paul and his family arrived and then it was all about baby Drew. At 2 weeks old he is the youngest grandchild (#14 if you're interested) and was quite the magnet for Marley, Makenna and Kole. They all took turns holding him!

The family fun was scheduled to begin at 2:00 with a Treasure Hunt which Ileana had organized but ... all good plans and all that ... they got delayed. We waited for Matt, Ileana and their family and Andrew and his family to arrive before starting it. By then it had started snowing too! Not that the kids were slowed down at all by a few flying flakes. They were full of pent up energy and fairly flew around the neighbourhood to find all the clues!! Even LC and her compadre Sadie got into the action!

Anyway, here is Day 18:

The whole clan. All 26 of us!! 

I took some "arty" shots of the decorations on Friday night. Don and I were having fun playing with the settings on our cameras!! Some of them were kind of good so I decided to add them in these trading card pockets.

On the opposite side I included a picture of LC and her closest cousin Sadie taken during the treasure hunt. LC is holding a cookie that the kids were given from the neighbour they had to sing to for their next clue. On the main page I added a picture I took of Jonina taking a picture of me ... in the snow storm! And then a picture Greg took of Poppa (Don) trying to climb over the gaggle of grandkids that decided to congregate on the landing!!  

I knew that today would be one of those days hard to condense into a couple pictures so the extra pages were needed. These ones tell the stories of the kids; the dollhouse, the Baby Drew Groupies, the Treasure Hunt and the gang crashed out watching a movie while we got dinner ready. 

On the last page I decided to focus on myself (an all too rare occasion.)  Greg took this shot of me serving up the lasagne to the kids and then I asked him to take the shot me with 3 of my 4 sisters-in-law (unfortunately Miles got sick just before dinner so he was taken home which is why Joni wasn't present for the phot op.) My brothers all found wonderful women!!

Thanks for tuning in again.

To recap all the brothers and nieces and nephews etc ...

1 Ammee + 1 Poppa

+ 4 brothers + 4 sisters-in-law

+ Greg and I

+ 14 grandchildren

= Chaos. Mayhem. Loudness.

= Laughs. Screams. Giggles.

= Love.