A Day at a Time: A Weekend Away!

When we moved out East almost eighteen years ago, no one from my side of the family lived within 1000 miles of us. It didn't take long though, before they started realizing how fun it was to be near their favorite oldest sister (and what a fantastic area Washington DC is), and we had regular visits from them through the year. Before long, my siblings realized that merely visiting us wasn't enough, and one-by-one they started moving here. Over the course of the last couple of decades, all of my siblings except one has done a stint living in our area for at least a year or two.

And for the last several years, I have been very blessed to have three of my seven siblings live within an hour of us. I enjoy being able to share special occasions with them and I absolutely love that my kids consider their cousins to be their friends! Their proximity to us has been an incalculable blessing to our family and I love having them nearby.

And that is why we are so sad about Matt and Karey (and Jack and Lincoln) picking up and moving to England last week. While I'm thrilled for them to have that kind of an opportunity, I am sad because we will miss them dearly for the three years they'll be gone. Jack and Lincoln are like the younger siblings Ellie never had and all of us enjoy their snuggles and youthful energy!

Before they left the country, they decided that in order to maximize the time they spent with family, that we needed a little family weekend away. Since none of us have houses big enough to host all of our families at once (7 adults and 11 children), they decided to rent a house in Massanutten where we could spend an entire weekend together under the same roof!

The house had beds for every single person and although too short of a time, it was a very fun weekend with lots of laughing, games, and giggles!

Everyone ate up their Uncle Matt time….

and their time with this little cutie! He's a sweet little guy who melted our hearts with his narrative of all that was going on around him. You could literally see the wheels of his brain turning as patched together very advanced and deliberate sentences. We will miss Jack!

The kids also really enjoyed the time they spent with Lincoln. He's quite a bit younger than our kids, but has similar interests (Legos and nature) that make him a fun guy to hang out with!