Gatherings with Games & Goodness - Week of July 17th

"This is the power of gathering: it inspires us, delightfully, to be more hopeful, more joyful, more thoughtful: in a word, more alive." ~Alice Waters 

Cam is surrounded by many of his parents' good friends and best friends we refer to as our family...extending the terms 'auntie' and 'uncle' to our closest.  The weekend was filled with reconnecting and seeing some of our dearest.
Saturday morning, we were ready early to head north.  The weather looked questionable, but that doesn't matter when you're ready for a day of fun.  We arrived at Oma and Opa's before lunch.  We were joined by Keith and Bobbi, Lance & Beth (from N. Carolina) and Jo & Ron and dog, Max.  Everyone brought a dish to pass for lunch and we feasted on farm fresh corn on the cob, grilled meat, homemade potato salad (Cam's new favorite), tasty fresh fruit, homemade chicken salad and deviled eggs just to name a few.
The sun was in and out until late afternoon, but the beach was inviting and the water somewhat warmish enabling the sand bakery to churn out some offerings.
We enjoyed an early dinner of leftovers with most of our crew choosing a different meat from lunchtime with the same side dishes and no complaints regarding a duplicate meal twice in one day.  Cam played games indoors and showed off his Uno skills once again.  We were happy to see the bright sun later in the day and even more pleased seeing all of our peeps.

Sunday, the schedule included an extended family gathering back in Grand Rapids at Cam's house with Katherine, Ms. Ann and the entire group of siblings, spouses and kids.

With this crowd, we assemble because of the original connection between Katherine (a.k.a. Ah-Dah, her Cam-given name before he could pronounce hers) and Camster before he was 3 years of age.  Katherine provided premiere Cam-care for more than 2 years and has remained a part of our family ever since.  Now, she has her own family and her mom, siblings, spouses and kids have become an extension of our family as well.  The day was dedicated to delicious food and fun games.  We played Catch Phrase, Headbandz, and Michigan Chat Pack.  One of the more humorous parts of the day was watching everyone try out the virtual reality headset!  Cam requested an encore presentation of this event as soon as possible.

Sometimes, we discover we haven't captured moments in pictures and then we realize, the moments were being captured by us.

Camology Quotes:

Miss Amanda and Cam go on many ventures each week.  Most every day they go through the nature park near our home and trek over a mile.  They have also been to visit  Amanda's grandma (our good friend, Mickie) at her grave site.  

"Mom, I wish Ms. Mickie was still here so she could see the Boulder Ridge Zoo.  She would love it!"

"It's hard to forget someone who gave you so much to remember." ~Sujish Kandampully