As soon as Ben and I drove home from a conference in North Carolina on Friday morning, Becky and the kids and I packed the van and headed to Texas for a family reunion at my Aunt Janie’s house just outside San Augustine. It’s a beautiful place – rolling wooded hills, undeveloped land that goes on for miles, cows and horses and deer and the occasional home.

This reunion thing happens every year but, because the plan for it is usually nailed down long after I’ve booked my Summer full, I haven’t been to this shindig in – gosh – six years and maybe more.  Enough time has passed that my cousins – last hugged by me when they were in high school or college – have kids of their own now.  My aunts are looking more like my grandmother – the way I remember her when I was little.  My Uncles are retired or headed that way shortly.  A lot has changed.  But one thing hasn’t.  There’s still a loot of laughter belted out and stories told when we all get together.

Here are some of the better pictures I grabbed over the weekend.

This is Carter, cousin Sarah’s charismatic boy.  He’s very photogenic but doesn’t stand still for long.  This is the only shot out of about fifty that wasn’t blurry.

And here’s my mom.  Like Bigfoot, she’s been seen by many and photographed by only the stealthiest of photographers.

Same thing with my sister, Lindy.  She doesn’t age.  Must be a health benefit of being five feet tall – something about the altitude difference I’m sure.

The kids spent a lot of time at Aunt Janie’s and Uncle’s Jame’s pond.  The thing is full of “mosquito fish” and perch.  This is my Dad (aka Geedaddy) on the pond with my son, Gresham.

The swarm of kids at the reunion must have caught two-hundred fish and put them in all of Aunt Janie’s tupperware.  The mortality rate for said fish was high.

Gresham didn’t want to help his cousin, Kimbry, catch fish.  So he told here there were snakes in the water that would eat her.  She didn’t fish much after that.

Of course, what redneck family reunion would be complete without watermelon?

And burnin’ stuff.

And a swimming pool?

And a big back porch?

And a golf cart with a blower mounted on top for outdoor AC?  Everyone has one of these right?  Right??

We’re staying in today, catching up on e-mails and cleaning.  Gresham says he’s bored.  He wants to live in Texas.  Me too.