Texas Aught 8

This post will continue to grow as I get more pictures and more time to blog about them.

The trip started at 4:00am. That is freakishly early. Much too early. Drek and I met the family, loaded into the van and were off on a 22 hour drive. For most of it I immersed myself in Stephanie Meyer's The Host, which I LOVED!! I finished it on day 2. Drek entertained the group by playing a game called Even or Odd, which is quite simple: get a bag of individually wrapped candies (in this case, we used Starbursts) and divvy them out evenly. Next, players grab a handful of candy in their fist, hold it up to another player and ask "Even or odd?" the player answers if the number of candies in the fist is even or odd. If he is correct, he gets the candy. If he is wrong, he owes the player that many candies. I was no good at this game.
We stopped at Las Cruces to spend the night. New Mexico is gorgeous and I am in love with it. While there, I convinced Drek to take me to a restaurant to get real New Mexican food. NOM!!!! It was so good! At that made that part of the trip worth it.

We finally made it to our destination and the reunion began!! Right away was dinner; Texas brisket and green salad and fruit salad. Apparently, the brisket was phenomenal, as people could not stop talking about it, and snacked on it for the rest of the reunion. After dinner I stood on the front porch and talked to Drek's cousin, whom I came to adore. She is the most remarkable women and I learned so so so much from her. She has five beautiful children, all of whom I also adore.
We got out t-shirts (mine ended up as a small. hmm....) and finally called it a night.

Day three was spent mostly lazying about and playing in the pool. The older kids finally got in and the younger kids swarmed around them. One thing led to another, and the next thing I knew there were some pretty fancy formations going on. This is one of my favorites:
Just look at the girl on top. Isn't she gorgeous? And that pose! A natural performer.