Holdaway Family Reunion

Thursday through Sunday afternoon, the Holdaway family reunion was held at Versailles State Park. It was one of the hottest reunions ever, if not THE hottest reunion ever.
These were the little kids present Thursday night. We were sweating even after the sun went down. From left to right are Grace, Matthew, Anthony, Andrew, Claire, Maria, and Gabriel.
On the way to the reunion, we stopped at Sonic and picked up some early dinner. These goofy toys were in the kid's meals. They were very entertaining toys; Grace was still playing with hers Friday morning.
The boys played "Harry Potter" for a while on Friday morning.
Maria, Grace, Gabriel, and Anthony hopped up on this rail and pretended it was a fire truck.
During the hottest part of the day, we went to lunch at McDonald's for good ole a/c. Then we went to the pool.
Unfortunately, the pool felt more like a warm bath than a refreshing swim. However, swimming in a warm bath is better than swimming in your own sweat.
The kids LOVED this slide!
I bet they went down the slide a dozen times. It was a pretty big slide with three good turns.
Denni is one of Grace's favorite people at the Holdaway reunion. She is so good with the kids.
During a pool break, the kids played in the baby pool.
I tried to get them together for a picture, but no dice. Grace was trying to tickle Anthony in this picture, not choke him . . . really.Friday evening, Michele hooked a sprinkler up for the kids to play in. When I went back to the rec. hall where the adults were sitting in their traditional circle talking, someone asked me if I'd been in the sprinkler too. I replied, "No. This is my sweat." My shirt was so wet it looked like I'd been in the sprinkler with the kids.
Josh brought a praying mantis with him. Grace and Mikey were so in awe of Josh and his praying mantis. They stood and talked to Josh about the praying mantis for the longest time.
Someone found a queen snake coiled up in the grass. Once the majority of the group walked away, I picked it up to show the kids who were playing in the sprinkler.
Gabriel had to have a snack.
Saturday morning, Gabriel decided to pull Grace in the wagon up the hill to breakfast.
Not long after breakfast, the cute pig tails were gone, and Grace was eating fruit snacks for a snack.
Before heading the pool again on Saturday afternoon, we did a group picture of the Ed Holdaway family. We miss Erin in our picture, but we don't get together like this very often.
Saturday evening the kids decorated bug jars. They had a competition to see who could collect the most bugs. Annabelle's friend, Renee, collect about 40 bugs in her jar. Whoa!
Gabriel hung out with the adults for a while before bed Saturday night. He and his uncles do some silly things. Are they supposed to be the Thinking Men here??? Ha ha!

I think after this year, we need to bring back the I Survived the Holdaway Reunion t-shirts!