Our mini family reunion

When you have 5 siblings, and you only have Christmas with your family every-other-year (the other year is the the in-laws), and you have a brother who has been to Iraq three times in the past 6 1/2 years and about to leave again in March, and two of your siblings are living on opposite coasts, it is an unusual thing to have the entire family together for Christmas. This was one of those unusual years so last summer we decided to reserve a cabin in Townsend, TN and all meet there for Christmas. We looked forward to it all year and it was as fun as we had hoped. The cabin worked perfectly for the 12 1/2 of us (my sis-in-law is pregnant). ;-)

I am still so behind. With moving this past week (I'll write more about that once I'm caught up) it's just been so hard to post. I'm going to have quite a few posts of our Christmas fun. This one is just some pictures of fun time hanging out at the cabin.

We stayed in the loft upstairs and the kids loved playing on the steps and at the upper landing. My brothers would throw things up to then and the boys would throw them back. Caiah is wearing his favorite PJs. Orin has one just like it. :-)


There was a downstairs den that was perfect for the boys who wanted to play lots of video games. The only bad part was that it was really really cold down there. Luckily I'm not a big fan of them so I only ventured down a few times. :-)

The beautiful view from one of the decks.

Orin LOVED the hot tub. He spent the most time of anyone out there and would have been in it 24/7 if we had let him.

Mom took a picture of me enjoying the view.


Dad and Aaron going out for a morning run.

Caiah enjoying his cereal.




The boys loved eating breakfast with Pops in the morning.

Some of the guys hanging out. Aaron was showing them pictures of one of the cool planes he flew in.