We received some very exciting news Monday night. Chris' Grandpa Jean has very kindly and generously offered up some of his frequent flyer miles to help us come to the Charles Family reunion in August. Woohoo! Hip, hip, hooray for Grandpa! We are very excited as the thought of everyone else being together for some relaxing fun in the mountains without us was very depressing indeed. But now, thanks to Grandpa's help we can afford to go! Asheville, NC here we come!
It is especially eventful as this will be the first time since the night before Chris left to go on his mission that all the children will be together in one place with John and Angie. It is also Angie's 60th birthday, so this will be the perfect way to celebrate. The children have only met their Charles' cousins once 4 years ago, so the memories are pretty distant. Also, there are two they have never met. They do remember Hayden as being lots of fun, and they kind of remember "the redheaded kids" aka Samuel and Benjamin. Some of my favorite memories are playing with my cousins as a child in San Diego, so I am glad my children can make some memories of their own this summer.
An added bonus will be meeting up with our good friends Dani and Corben and little Madison who was just barely born last time we saw them. They were stationed in a base near Frankfurt for a while, and we were able to visit a couple of times, and they also came down once or twice to see us. We aren't completely sure what we will be doing, but anything with Corben involved is bound to an adventure. He has a knack of inspiring my kids to try stuff they have always been too afraid of and discovering they like it. (He even taught them how to spit properly when brushing their teeth. Thanks Corben!)
We are also anxiously awaiting the arrival of Lance, Heather and their kids. My girls got on like firecrackers with Heidi and talk about her CONSTANTLY (in a good way, of course). We have lots of different activities to choose from while they are here, and hope we can be as good of hosts to them as they were to us last year. They will arrive exactly one month from today. I am using it as the extra push I need to get a lot of projects I've been meaning to do around the house finally finished. I do that every time someone comes to visit, and I usually accomplish quite a bit. Problem is I keep thinking of new stuff to do, then put it off until the next time someone comes!