Keeping Cool

Last Weekend of June, 2014

Davis Family Reunion

26 people at the height of the party on Saturday

Check out the temperature!

(And this is after the thermometer had been inside cooling off for a couple minutes.)

What to do?

(Thank the good Lord we found a house to rent that had a swimming pool!)

Here are some snapshots of the day.

(With more to come later... fair warning.)

Dominic, Luau King

Omar, his accompanist

Paul, and Shock Top or Angry Orchard?
So cool in the pool

Michelle (Birthday Girl, turned 19 on Sunday!)
Kevin, behind her, the resident licensed bar tender
and fruit smoothie maker. He could fix the
air conditioner on his car would be rich if he got
paid for all the drinks he made last weekend!

L-R: Kevin, Michelle, Gavin, Paul -- chilling

Kevin -- or Elton John (one or the other)

L-R: Paul, Nicole, baby Evelyn, Kevin, Theresa, and Gavin on the side of the pool...
More chilling.

Kevin.  He's just silly, that's all.  And Dan's back. (Don't ask where he's been, ok?)

Usual suspects: Theresa, Dominic, William, Kevin, Gavin, Nicole, Paul...
Still chilling.

Nina, picturing the picture-taker

Kevin, Michelle, Gavin, Paul

The entertainment again

I don't know.  Paul looks just a little too comfortable here.  I'm just betting
this didn't last long.  Wish I got a picture of William breaking this up.

Uncle Dominic with Evie in her stunning bathing suit.

Gavin getting ready to "Canonball!)

Gavin right before squirting Nicole (his Mommy) with the squirt gun.  

As hot as the weekend was, I think everyone will remember the fun and games, the swimming and splashing, the food and the fruit drinks, the laughter and time together,  and not the triple digit temperatures. It was a time to never be forgotten.  It's so rare that we have everyone together any more!  Everyone -- and then some, as so many of our old friends happened by over the weekend, too.  It was amazing!  People just kept coming... and coming... and coming...  As out of the way as we are now, it boggles the mind how such a crowd still gathered.

Everyone (all the big kids, extended relations, and friends) has gone home now, though, except for Dominic (who's still here waiting to have his wisdom teeth pulled, poor fellow) -- and I miss everyone more than ever -- though (good grief, kids!) I'm still finding half-finished water bottles all over the house to remind me of all your smiling faces.

And I can't wait until we can figure out a way to do this again. Hopefully soon.  Maybe next time we'll have a house in the country instead of a pool to play in.  Praying on that.

But grateful, regardless, to understand more and more how home really is where the heart is -- and the heart is that link of love amongst the bunch of us not rooted in any mere place.  We've been so thrilled to come together where we can hug and tease and sing and play and pray together, but the bond of family is deeper/stronger/more important than time and space.  It's founded on God's Will for us to be a family and has been nurtured by our shared Faith, our common values, and the respect and regard we've learned to have for one another, child to parent, parent to child, sibling to sibling, and so on. Respect, regard, and tease, that is!  But on thing is certain: the never-endingness of it of our family bond -- in all its causes and manifestations...

  All real love comes from God -- is God -- and so it is eternal.  Our bond of family love is forever -- timeless and without boundary.  We may not all be physically together again for a time, but that's OK.  As long as we all make a corner of Christ's Heart our home, we are all really together.  Forever.  Please remember that, children.  It is the one thing.  Home is where His heart is.