The Smallest Family

That was our title last weekend when we got together with the CES families from Tallahassee (seven kids) and Tampa (six kids). Add to that the General Manager of the Church Ranch's family (where we ate dinner) (six kids) and we definitely had the smallest family. When does that ever happen? Well...maybe when we come to Utah, but here in Florida it was nice to try out the title of The Smallest Family.

Here is a picture of the three CES families with all the kids lined up in order of age (not height, you'll notice. One family had a 12-year-old that was no taller than Tucker). We are also missing the two youngest girls - two-year-olds who couldn't be bothered with a picture.

We all got together after the men in Brady's area had a few days of meetings out at a new camping facility built on the ranch. They built several "bunk houses" - four cinderblock walls that house 20 people on bunk beds. Our kids thought it was a blast - a bunk bed for everyone. Everyone slept on top and kept their gear on the bottom bunk.

Friday night we had a huge dinner with the GM of the ranch. There must have been 50 people there. We ate BBQ pork, baked beans, cabbage salad, fruit salad, macaroni salad, potatoe chips, cookies, you name it. It was a lot of fun. The kids just roamed around their yard (which is so huge you wouldn't believe it) and everyone played together like they were long lost friends (even though they'd just met).

There were so many things to do the next day. After a delicious breakfast of pancakes with homemade buttermilk syrup and bacon, the men loaded up the gear to go canoeing and fishing. While all the men were gone with all the kids (except a few little ones, but none of my little ones), I read a book. I can't remember the last time I just laid on an air mattress at 10:00 a.m. and read a book. It was lovely.
After the canoe trip we let off a rocket that Tucker had recently purchased. He was so excited about it I think he asked 50 times when he could launch it. It was a lot of fun. Then we went to the target range and shot a few guns. I started to get a little anxious about 18 kids being around about 10 guns, but the dads were very careful. When Brother Bowcutt told me I could be the adult in charge of one of the guns, I told him maybe his 17-year-old son would be better for the job since he had a lot more experience than I did.

Now, I must admit that I am an involuntary screamer when I get startled. My brother Mike can attest to that. He used to get the biggest kick of going around the house scaring me just so I would scream. I would scream and then I would hit him. So when those guns started going off, I couldn't help but let out a scream every now and then. Brother Bowcutt looked at me kind of strange when I did it the first time. I told him I couldn't help it!

Then he decided I needed to shoot one of them big guns. I don't know what the numbers or names of the guns were, but I shot a darn nice one. He told me not to scratch it because it was worth about $1,000. Yikes! What was he doing letting me touch it? Well, I'll tell you what, you would think I've been dropping the kids off and going to target practice during the day. I hit a piece of skeet square in the center AND it didn't shatter! I guess that is amazing because all the men just couldn't believe it. Brady made me have my picture taken with the gun and the skeet just to prove it really happened.

Here's me saying, "Don't make me shoot this gun..."

Once I got a hold of it, it's wasn't too bad!

Here's me, shocked and surprised that I hit the thing!

And here I am again, Brady made me give him my "Oh yeah, I'm so bad" pose so he could plaster this on his desktop. I guess it was a proud moment for him to know his wife could shoot a gun. Watch out!

Now, for a few pictures of everyone else shooting guns - and other camping pictures: