Celebrating 80

This past weekend, our family converged and invaded Granny's Knob which is what we call DH's folks' home in the mountains. They have 3 children and it's been a coon's age since everyone has been able to gather together. Back in the day, when the kids were small, it was tradition to spend every other Christmas together and my goodness, are there ever amazing memories of those times! Now that families have grown and married and divorced and remarried, it has been difficult to get everyone together, but Grandpa turned 80 on Saturday and that sounds like the perfect reason to clear schedules and help him celebrate. These are my in-laws and their 3 kids. (They're standing on steps - DH is actually the tallest of the bunch.)

It's an all day trip for DH's sister and brother so they stayed over the weekend, but we're closer and just spent the day. We didn't want to overwhelm his mom anymore than we already were as there was already 13 staying for a few days. My niece created an event and we messaged back and forth, organizing all the food which always turns out to be enough for an army.

I contributed 4 dozen eggs, Spicy pickles, Texas Caviar and chips, Green Chile Pinwheels, Cherry Salad - a long standing family tradition, and a 9 x 13" pan of twice baked potato casserole.

We set up a long table out on their deck and foundered on all the offerings. It was all we could do to leave room for birthday cake - homemade German Chocolate - the birthday boy's favorite!

And the laughter

and stories

and memories flew nonstop

between parents and siblings and cousins, (my BIL and his new wife, plus 2 cousins didn't get in until late, just before we headed out that night so sadly, we didn't get photos of them, but these 4 hooligans grew up together and are now just bigger lovable hooligans)

 building new memories along the way.

And the newest additions to the family tree kept us entertained. The big one's a kid at heart. :)

With kids this cute, it's hard to whittle down the pictures

shucking corn

chasing bubbles

collecting rocks

Memories in the making

We even managed to sneak in some time with fabric and thread. We're all quilters and my niece brought 3 nap quilts for her kiddos to take to school and daycare. Many hands make light work and we had our own impromptu quilting bee out on the deck:

Our girl brought Harvey and we brought him home with us, as we are grand dog sitting this week while our girl is in Hawaii on a job interview:

My in laws have a Jack Russell and Harvey spent much of the day like this:

He was determined that he was going to find a way to make himself fit into this door. He thinks he's a lap dog anyway

Good try Harvey. My FIL is a young and active 80 - he still climbs on the roof to repair things, rotates his tires on their trucks, cuts all the wood to heat their home, he just replaced every window in their home and he still saddles up and rides through the mountains every chance he gets. We're very thankful that he is healthy and able to do all that he does and that everyone could be there to commemorate a big birthday for a very special man.