Showing posts with label family reunion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label family reunion. Show all posts

Jul 11, 2011

Weekend in Pictures

The annual family reunion. The kind you eagerly anticipate, not dread.

The Murphy matriarchy.

Julia loves having her picture plastered across the internet. So I always oblige her.

Aunt Diane. Baby whisperer. Except Darwin.

Never a shortage of babies. Or baby holders.

You can't really beat renting the whole pool.

Every family has at least one black sheep.

Amelia continues her speeding bullet passage to teen-hood.

I said, "say cheese" and Darwin puffed out his chest. Seriously.

OK, maybe there's still some little girl left in this pepper pot.

More flexing.

Tilt shift Truman.

Hayley was just mad that Truman won the longest eyelashes competition.

All kinds of trouble brewing.

The End.
(Amelia's, to be exact.)

Jul 20, 2010

Best Thing Ever

We recently had our family reunion picnic.  The night before, I ran out to the store to pick up some magical product I'd recently heard about.  They're called Puddle Jumpers and everyone on the internet has been raving about them.  They get talked about in parenting circles like hangover remedies get talked about by college students.  People swear by them.  So, of course, I was a little bit skeptical.  When I actually went out to buy them, though, I was encouraged by the fact that I had to go to four different stores to find a total of three Puddle Jumpers.  I mean, they couldn't be all hype if they were actually sold out everywhere.

Well, we tried them out.  And now I swear by them.

Puddle Jumpers are the shit.  They're like water wings from the future.  I slapped a Puddle Jumper on each of the three oldest kids, threw them in the pool and when I came back several hours later they were all still alive.  Success.

They officially have my seal of approval.

The rest of the family reunion picnic was fun, but nothing like those magical few hours at the pool.

Go for it, dude -- you're wearing a Puddle Jumper.  And killer goggles.

Obligatory.

The real magic of Puddle Jumpers?  Warn out as hell kids.

And a random photo of cousin Trent on a giant steel bug.  Whatever.
Apparently teenage boys never pass up the opportunity to pretend they have giant steel testicles.


Aug 10, 2009

Headin' for a Weddin' Part II

Now this is a true photo update. The day after the wedding, many of us out-of-towners stopped over at Aunt Karen's house before we made our respective trips home. This setting was much more conducive to my picture taking habit, so I tried to make up for my limited photography from the day before. It was another fun day for the kids and there were plenty of photo ops. Karen has an elaborate pond/waterfall that the kids were drawn to like middle aged women are drawn to Twilight. Unfortunately for Karen, several hundred landscaping stones may have been tossed repositioned in the pond.



















Aug 8, 2009

Headin' for a Weddin' Part I

Before I start, let me just point out that the title of this blog post suddenly took me back to the 8th grade when our class performed the play, "Headin' for a Weddin'." A quick search turned up the script here. If I recall correctly, I played the part of Slim. Whoa, what a flashback. I wonder if my dad still has the video of the play...

Now back to our regularly scheduled post.

Last weekend my cousin Quentin got married. For weeks we debated over whether or not we should make the trip. It was around a three hour drive and Julie is very, very pregnant at this point. On top of that, Julie was neck deep in a major system roll out at work with her being the primary lead on the project. In fact, the deadline for the project was the day we would need to leave for the wedding. So basically, our attendance hinged on Julie's ability to manage this work project and still have the energy to make the trip to Fort Wayne, Indiana. Amazingly, Julie put in about 60 hours of work that week and was still feeling up for the road trip, so away we went. (Julie is about as amazing as they come.) It was good that we got to go because there was a major turn out of family members which is harder and harder to come by these days. The kids got meet many cousins they've never met before and they had a really, really good time.

Well, as usual these days, my photography opportunities were somewhat limited by my parenting duties. Our kids outnumber us and Julie is operating at 40% capacity. (This is a limitation of her body, not her will. For example, whereas she normally could corral two squirming toddlers on her lap, square inches of lap space now limit her to barely even one squirming toddler.) Unfortunately, I don't even have a picture of the bride and groom. But trust me, Quentin and Trish make a very beautiful couple. I really only got to snap photos for about twenty minutes and in that time I only got a few shots that were anything more than a blur.

Here are the few good ones I got, mainly taken on the dance floor that was entirely dominated by the five-and-under crowd. There were A LOT of little kids at this wedding. I don't even know how many. Trish's family is most likely under the impression that the Murphy's have no concept of birth control. Tomorrow I'll post more pictures that were taken the following day (when the kids were a little more free to roam) at Aunt Karen's house.

Jameson, by the way, is a dancing machine. He stayed on the dance floor until nearly 10:30 when he had to be dragged away, literally kicking and screaming. A four hour car trip, no nap and several hours of dancing going beyond bedtime makes for one very crabby (but very sound sleeping) three year old.


Is that "The Running Man," Amelia?


Cousins Andersen and Morgan cruising for chicks. Not sure who the wingman was.


"I let the ladies come to me."


Jameson's moves are way better than mine. Even the moves I break out after a few rum and cokes.


Ah yes, the ol' "Tackle Your Little Brother and Tickle Him to Death." A very popular dance in the 20s but making a bit of comeback today.



I think Amelia and Alyssa look very similar in many ways. But no one agrees with me.

Jul 13, 2009

Spoons, Dirt and Naked Butts

As promised, I took a several rolls of pictures at the family reunion. Ha, ha. Do they even sell rolls of film anymore? OK, I took one very large memory card full of pictures. Over 300 photos, actually. Which I whittled down to 101 for my Flickr album.


We always look forward to the annual reunion...


...because it means we get to lay out by the pool.

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...because it's easy to find partners for card games.

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Jameson's first victim.


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No reunion is complete without a spirited game of "spoons."


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Kyle, you might be quicker than your brother, but you're still not bigger.


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Hayley thought "War" might be fun with Jameson...


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...until she realized he has his own "rules."




...because there's no shortage of cool playground equipment.

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Regina got in on the action.


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By the end of the day, Regina decided her babysitting fees would be "charged by the mile."




...because getting dirty is encouraged.

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"Really!? I can get as dirty as I want!?"


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"This means I don't have to take a bath later, right?"




...because we get to see so many great cousins, aunts and uncles!

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Big kids know all the best ways to get in trouble.


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Hey, it's a favorite great aunt that lives in Tennessee.


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When in doubt, just remember that Ohio State gear is always appropriate dress for the reunion.


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Oh yeah ...and because we get to pester aunts that read blogs but never comment.

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Click here to see the full album.