Family Times...

Thrift store shopping and Uno and fishing and noodling and swimming and sunbathing...

Catching up when you only see them once a year, if you are lucky...

Various ages and three generations and enough miles between them to span the nation (and at one time... we were... from coast to coast).

These are the times I live for.  Summer only comes once a year and with it the annual trek to Green River from  Michigan and North Carolina and Eastern Kentucky and sometimes New Mexico.  Different faces each year, but with the same stories...

Stories of Pap when he drank and liked to hide the cards under his leg so he would win, and of Mamaw Mary quarreling about him quoting the good  book.  Me, too young to really remember them, but remembering the big front porch... and the upstairs balcony, the tiny stairs that seemed forever steep to my six-year old legs. 

And Kyle.. sneaking the cards under his leg... Rheagan, the Uno Card shark who beat Kami "all four times". 

Riley and Caleb, from two seperate states, who probably wouldn't even know each other, kept close through facebook.  Sam and Kami, one year apart in age, both tall and slender and such pretty girls.  And we invaded the thrift store, with one dressing room, picking out clothes for each other. Aunt June laughing her girlish laugh and her "boyfriend", Uncle Sonny waiting patiently in the van.

No campfire this year for us, or fishing... we got there too late in the week and thunderstorms rained us out.  Me, Dad, and Caleb laughing as we ran through the rain and the lightning from Aunt June's cabin (although Caleb calls her Memaw and Uncle Sonny Pepaw...) But there was still laughter and porch swinging and sitting, swimming in the lake and trying to balance on the "pole" marking the swimming area on the beach.  Tiny Riley, blonde as blonde can be, and Caleb, twice her size, balancing, balancing, until they splashed into the water in a fit of giggles.

Family... shared venues for this one week, and sad hugs and goodbyes until next year...

Thank You, Lord, for Green River Lake and for this time of the year... where I remember where I came from, and whom I came from...and the Giver of Life.