Family photos

We got together this past weekend (Father's Day weekend) for camping at Peter and Sandra's property by St. Marys. A major part of the get together was a family photo shoot with Smiling Eyes, a charity that does photo shoots with families dealing with cancer. Darlene from Jakal Photography came bright and early Saturday morning and took photos of our family - an intimidating group of 27 people! I can't post all the photos on here as not everyone wants their family on a blog like this, but I can show you some! It all went very well, and we are very thankful for the gift of this photography session. The photos here are not from Darlene, but from other cameras that were around at the time.

Mom was not feeling well, but she managed to put on a smile for photos. Dad and Mom unfortunately got colds and have been very congested with those. In spite of that, we had a good time.

After having a rib extravaganza on Saturday evening, we had a church service with all the kids. Mom and Dad had found a book that was about who God is, and the author quoted 15 Bible verses. Mom and Dad have 15 grandchildren (including Baby Bump, not yet born), so they thought it was perfect. Each of the grandchildren (or their parents) read a verse in the story. Then we sang some hymns together. Mom read this poem to us:

The Elephant In The Room

By Terry Kettering

There’s and elephant in the room.
It is large and squatting, so it is hard to get around it.
Yet we squeeze by with “How are you?” and “I’m fine…
And a thousand other forms of trivial chatter.
We talk about the weather.
We talk about work.
We talk about everything else…
Except the elephant in the room.
We all know it is there.
We are thinking about the elephant as we talk together.
It is constantly on our minds.
For, you see, it is a very big elephant.
It has hurt us all.
But we do not talk about the elephant in the room.
Oh, please, say her name.
Oh, please, say “[her name]” again.
Oh, please, let’s talk about the elephant in the room.
For if we talk about her death,
Perhaps we can talk about her life.
Can I say “[her name]” to you and not have you look away:
For if I cannot,
then you are leaving me alone…
in a room…
with an elephant.

But mostly, this was a weekend to focus on having fun and being together. We rented a bouncy castle for the kids, and they wore themselves out with their jumping.

Here are some photos from our weekend:

Bouncy castle - the kids jumped and jumped. 

The De Boers

The Janssens

The Duncans - yes, we're still missing a few families here. We also did a  large photo with all 27 of us. And some shots with just the grandkids and Grandma and Grandpa, and just the siblings with Mom and Dad. 

Then, photos with Grandma. We were doing fine until Natalie went to have a photo with Grandma.
She got a little emotional.  Brave girl, she kept smiling even while her eyes filled with tears.
The Kleenex came out then.

Harmony took this photo because Morgan looked so cute crying.
We didn't stop to find out what was wrong. Probably a boo boo!

Grandma can fix it!

Remember the flowered dresses of the early 90's? We were remembering family photos where everyone wore a different flowered dress. So Sandra came out with an old bridesmade dress! Pretend the rest of us are also wearing Laura Ashley dresses! We had a good laugh about that. You can't see the HUGE bow on the back of Sandra's dress. Your loss.

The kids painted stones that afternoon. When Mom was in the hospital, there was a healing garden outside the hospital where people could paint stones with the names of their loved ones. 

The kids presented their stones to Grandma - now she can have her own healing garden at home.

Ribs for supper! Yumm

The grown ups got to sit at a table.

Our church service

Campfire at night - we never do anything small - this is a 300 lb tree in the fire pit.