Diamantopoulos Family Reunion- Part 1

I'll start with a P.S. - I say part 1 just to motivate myself that I don't have to spend so much time at this instant going over ALL the fun, smiles, and memories made this year at Wildwood where, for the first time, my entire 17 member family got together for a the whole first week of August. I could write a booklet on it, but I will just share with you some of the highlights, as naptime is never long enough to accomplish all of one's Saturday tasks =: )

In no particular order, here are some of the memories from one week of awesomeness:

So day one, all of us and the kiddos go (many) blocks away to a playground, and as soon as we get there, a nice lady tells us all to leave because someone heard thunder. I look up, see nothing. 5 seconds later, we all look behind us and it's like the cloud of death rolling in. So we walk, some hurriedly, some nonchalantly home, taking pictures, as the craziest cumulonimbus clouds I'd ever seen come clawing after us. (Greg and Rachel went so far as to go to the beach then and catch some pictures with the lightning on the ocean...and came back alive with some very cool pictures!) I have never in all my life seen the sky go from happy to demonic in five minutes flat!

But don't worry: "weeping may last for a night but joy comes in the morning!" So by the very next we had beautiful weather! So off to the beach we went (and several subsequent days of course). Now taking small children to the ocean on one's own is not my idea of a good time. Nope. But when there are 10-13 adults to 4 kids, it's not so bad (but even so the trekking 2 blocks and then over the immense width of beach just to get there, keeping sand out of mouths, making sure the adventurous ones aren't drowning, feeding them pizza amongst brave and pesky seagulls, and bathing afterwards...) Why DO we take wee ones to the beach? Maybe these pictures fill in the answers:

 There were lots of reasons to celebrate. In July and August alone, our family had many birthdays and Peter and Laura's anniversary was during our trip. Penny and Evan's birthdays were shortly after, and since Penny had been talking up a 'party cake' for months, mom decided to surprise her (and all of us) with an old tradition of filling a gutter (clean of course) with ice cream, chocolate sauce, caramel sauce, peanuts, whipped cream, cherries, and oh yes, bananas.Thus was born the 9 foot banana split ( I will not bother to show you the picture of all of us eating it, or you may never want to try it =: )

 With that I leave you for now... have a sweet day!

~Charis