Nothing quite like family

Over the past weekend, we packed up the car and headed 2 hours west to meet up with my family.  My parents, grandmother, and all my siblings with all their kids were present coming from different parts of Arizona, California, and Alaska.
It had been almost five years since were all together!
So of course, we had to take a family photo.

And of course all ten cousins had a blast playing together.
Gosh, but I have an adorable niece and nephews!

And yes, ten kids in the house was wonderfully crazy. We adults were very glad to shut them into the garage-turned-rec-room when the noise level got out of control!

We kept them busy with faux snow balls (hours of entertainment for all ages!), sidewalk chalk, bubbles, kites, and a painting craft.  The weekend actually went really well.  I wish we had had more energy to stay up past the kids' bedtimes for some adult time, but it was still good to be all under the same roof anyway.

The weekend ended way too quickly, and we were all sad to say goodbye.

The whole crew.  We were missing two spouses.

I love the quote "families are a lot like fudge: mostly sweet with a few nuts."  And I have no problem claiming the 'nut' title! It's all good, because family accepts each others idiosyncrasies. Besides, if I'm a nut, then most likely, so are my siblings. :)

Ah, there's nothing quite like family get-togethers.
I can't wait to do it again!