Houck Family Reunion

Emily, Claire and I flew to Atlanta, then drove with my dad down to Hilton Head, SC to meet up with the whole Houck family for a week at the beach. It was such a highly anticipated family reunion, as every single aunt, uncle and cousin was in attendance...something that hasn't happened since we were all in high school. We have been coming to Hilton Head since I was 10. The last time I was there was 4 years ago. I brought Devin with me when we were just dating. A lot has happened in my life since the summer of 2008...I got engaged, married, moved to Chicago, had a baby, and then had another baby...and I brought both of those babies with me.  Poor Devin couldn't make it because of rotations...(only 1 more year of that!)    

Here's the whole group.

With Amanda

 

Playing in the sand with Grandpa

 

With Joshy

 

2 of my brothers; Michael and Josh

 

Me and my big girl

 

She really liked this big puddle on the beach everyday

 

Every night we rotated from condo to condo for dinner, games and Olympic watching. Fun, fun, fun!

 

Look at those curls

 

Watching the Olympics with grandpa

 

Playing with kitchen food with uncle Matt

 

She's an Oreo lover...just like her mother!

 

Precious, sweet Claire. What a good baby she was the whole week!

 

iPhone photo shoot

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We don't have a pool to go to where we live, so this was Emily's first time swimming in chlorine. And she loved it!

 

LOVED having grandpa throw her up in the air. As soon as he would catch her, she would say, "do again!" and then squeal with delight as she would shoot in the air again.

 

The boys played golf twice. It's always fun to have them all show up to the beach after they're finished, and hear about who beat who. Our family is just a tad bit competitive.

 

On the last night, I came into the living room to find this...They were all pooped!

 

Why did the trip have to go by so stinkin' fast? We looked forward to it for so long, and now it's just memories behind us :( I miss the little routine we sank into over those 7 days, and hanging out with all of my cousins, aunts, uncles, dad and siblings. I am so thankful that getting everyone together is important to all of us, and that we all made sacrifices to be there together. This was the first Hilton Head trip where both my grandpa and grandma Houck were not present. On the last night we all shared memories of them, and it was the perfect ending to a great trip.