Carden family Reunion

Well, i was able to attend my first Carden family reunion. I guess technically it wasn't a "Carden" reunion but close enough. It was Justin's mom's side of the family. We left Friday morning at around 3:30-4:00am - North Carolina bound. The boys and I slept almost the entire way. My poor husband drove the entire time. We got to NC around 7:30 and stopped for breakfast and the boys and i stayed awake for the remainder of the drive and arrived at Aunt Ellen's about 9:00- 9:30 something like that. I took a shower and we just piddled around for a few hours. I realized that i had one the "mother of the year" award when i noticed that i hadnt packed ANY toys for the boys to play with AT ALL! I put two seek and find books in the car but that was it! I don't know what i was thinking. so we took them up to Wal-Mart and got them some Uno cards, a hotwheels race track, a plastic ball, & some extra race cars- color changing cars. Anyhow, then we went and i got to meet Gary- justin's dad's 90 year old sister, Ruth! She was a sharp as a tack! It was hot as blue blazes in her house but still that woman doesn't seem 90 at all!

Saturday ws the BIG REUNION at Ellens house. We arrived at 10:00am per Ann's request and just kind of hung around for a bit until time to put up the jump house and get things started. Once the jump house was up we didn't see the boys for a while until Irey came and wanted to kick the ball with Justin in the front yard. Ellen has this tree in her front yard- Satan's tree. This tree had thorns- sharp thorns- about 3-4 inches long on the branches and these blackish brown pod like things hanging off of it- almost like pea pods but i would imagine around 6-8 inches long. The tree was creepy to say the least. Anyhow, Justin kicked the ball up in the tree and it sounded like a mad snake and the ball deflated instantly. Satan's tree ate Irey's ball.

Uncle Rick tried to patch it as best he could but it wouldn't keep air in it, so Irey moved on to other things. Justin's cousins were all to arrive at noon so we could visit before all the people we didn't know arrived at 2:00. One of the cousin's husband's was cooking a pig on this huge smoker. So, Laura- the cousin with the big- calls and says that they were loading up the cars and her daughter was carrying a bag and it ripped open and i knife fell out of it and sliced her foot. So they were heading to the emergancy room. So Angela, another cousin, went and picked up Laura's son and her husband drove the pig over. The pig was really cool to see on the smoker- i know thats kind of morbid but i had never seen that before. I took pictures.

So anyhow, Laura and her family arrived after the Emergancy room visit- everyone is fine. And all sorts of people starting showing up. People that Ann didn't even know. We were introduced to as many as possible and basically just kept to ourselves after the introductions. The family is so sweet all of them.

The next morning we packed up the cars and picked up Ms. Ann and headed for Cracker Barrel for breakfast and then hit the road back home to GA. It was a very nice trip. Was good to get away from home and spend some fun times with family. I will post pictures when i get Ann's camera.