Family family and more family...

While we were in CT we got to go to a family picnic at my Uncle Pete's house. When I was younger we had these all the time so it was nice to be able to do it with Maddox and Tyler, too. We also took some family pictures (well, I took them). It was a lot of fun to laugh and eat with my family. I forgot how much I miss that!



Max LOVED all his aunts and uncles and cousins. He loved the attention and the games they played with him. He especially loved my cousin Jenny's son Josh who is about 6 or 7 years old. We had great food and great fun.


Josh was so sweet, too. He was teaching Mattie how to catch a football and kept going over to her and moving her hands and setting up her arms so she could catch it.


My grandma and our long LONG time family friend Mrs. Fortune (or Flip as everyone calls her because she's kind of "flippy"). My grandma's kids and Mrs. Fortune's kids grew up together. Their husbands both died around the same time. Mrs. Fortune even taught Danielle in preschool and me in Catechism. We love her!






Although, worth mentioning is the incredible rain storm I had to drive in on the way to my Uncle's house. I have never been so freaking scared in my entire life while driving. I kid you not, the rain was soooo hard that we had to slow down to about 10 miles an hour on the high way and turn our emergency lights on and pray and pray that no one would hit us from behind. I couldn't see the hood of our car it was raining so much. I just followed the red flashing lights in front of me hoping that my step-dad knew where he was going. We had to cross a tall bridge, too and the wind gusts were incredible. I white-knuckled it all the way to my Uncle's house where I promptly parked the car, got out and started shaking. I usually tend to panic after the emergency situation is over -- while driving I was pretty calm, but as soon as the car stopped I freaked. And this wasn't the only torrential downpour I had to drive in on this trip. Yikes!!