The lake with Grami & Kenbob

We had our 2nd annual Cook family reunion last weekend (June 9-11) in Oklahoma at Sequoyah State Park on Ft. Gibson Lake. It was a new experience for us. :) The first part of the new-ness was just being out for an extended period of time with 2 kids! Boy was that exhausting, but I had fun. The other different part of this "vacation" was the fact that it was just like summer camp! We had a "group camp" reserved which we filled up. Everyone stayed in little A-frame cabins and there was a nice lodge with cooking & eating facilities and then a little ways off there was a covered picnic area and down the way was lake access. We also had common bathrooms & showers for the whole camp. It reminded me of being at camp as a kid, except this time I helped cook and clean. :)

Owen had a BLAST. He ran right down to the water and waded around in it. The water was a little high so it wasnt the best swimming area, but he didnt care. He just liked to walk around in it, throw rocks in, hit the water with a stick to splash everyone and eventually started using his hands to splash around. He had so much fun. We tried to go swimming at a nearby swimming area, but Owen got scared once he couldnt touch the bottom and lost interest after that. We need to do swimming lessons or at least get him in the water more often! I'll try to remember to post a video or some pictures of it tomorrow.

This was my Grandma Cook's (and lots of other family members) first time to meet Ella. She also hadn't seen Owen in nearly a year, so it was great to let the kids meet her and I was also so happy to see her. I wish I had more opportunities! Pretty much everyone showed up, so we had a big crowd. I think we have something like 65 family members (that's just counting my grandma's kids and their families......) and several people brought along some friends.

We were pretty hesitant and worried about the drive up there (~4.5 hours) because Ella really hates being in the car, especially when she's a little tired, but not exhausted enough to fall right to sleep. Therefore, we decided to drive at night so they'd both sleep through it all. That worked out pretty well for us. We drove to Muskogee and spent the night there Friday night and woke up Saturday, got some breakfast and then headed to the lake which was about 30 minutes away. Then on Monday night, we packed up and left camp to head home. Ella decided to wake up when I put her in her carseat that time and made us stop a few times before we got going too far. She'd scream and scream until I took her out of the carseat. Then she's smile and play in my lap for a while, so I'd feed her in hopes she'd go back to sleep... but she didnt, put her back in her carseat and head out again. After 3 stops, she finally gave up and went to sleep. Thank goodness... otherwise, we would've had to stop somewhere for the night.

Overall, I think the reunion was a big success and it was so great to see everyone. The crazy part is how fast my cousins' kids grow up! When you only see them once or twice a year, they just sprout up like weeds! :)