When children are little, as much as there is a lot of preparation to getting them "gathered up", it is easy to organize a family outing. Once they become adolescents, there is less work involved in the preparation as they can do that themselves, but you have to work around their friends and their sporting events. Once they grow into independent adults, trying to organize a family event becomes a major ordeal because everyone has their own separate lives.

Jamie is only here until Wednesday and Karley flies home on June 6th and I wanted to get all of our children together to take some family pictures. When I had lunch with my sister last week we decided it would be nice for all of us, (Rick, myself, Karley, Makai, Jay, Jamie, Bill & Laura and Angie as well as Chris, Fred, Jody and Mark) to get together at her house for a visit on Sunday. When I called Jay last week to organize it, he had already made plans with his brother to go on a golf outing with some friends, Bill and Laura had plans and Angie was in a soccer tournament. I was able to persuade Jay to alter his plans, which would free up Jamie and today we ventured out to Coldwater without Bill, Laura and Angie.

We had a really nice reunion, our first since before we left in December 2003 and I managed to take a number of pictures of the cousins together. I am thinking in order to have a family portrait done that will include Bill and Angie I may have to rely on a photo editing program!