Sarah has lived all over the place and one of the stops along the way was Bradenton, Florida. While living in Florida the Rinsema's lived on a street where there were a lot of young families abounded and so there were plenty of playmates for Sarah and her siblings. The group of families on the block got along so well in fact, they used to vacation together. Their destination was Maggie Valley, North Carolina, a sleepy town just outside Smoky Mountains National Park. Those years have long passed but this year Sarah's family decided to have an immediate family reunion of sorts at the very cabin they had stayed at all those years ago.

So on early Saturday morning we all packed in the car and headed out. Dad, Mom, Sarah, Dan, and Rebecca all headed out in one car and Nathan, Nikki, and Joy took another. Although we were with five and we they were with three you could have never been able to tell based on luggage packed. Nathan and Nikki's SUV was packed to the gills with luggage (mostly stuff for baby Joy, which is understandable). After ten hours we arrived in Smokies and pulled up to the cabin that had been the Rinsema family respite those 15 years ago. Very little had changed and we all had a lot of fun recounting childhood memories of days gone by.

We stayed for a week and enjoyed ourselves thoroughly. We kept a relaxed schedule of going to bed late and getting up really late. We explored the trails in the mountains around the cabin, spent a few hours tubing down Deep Creek, went golfing, visited the National Park, hiked a few miles along the famous Appalachian Trail and went fishing among other things. It was a lot of fun to do all the activities together and even more fun to eat together. Each night a different member of the family prepared the dinner and we had a lot of fun presenting meals that we had learned while all living apart.

Definitely the star of the show was Baby Joy. Joy is almost three months old now and everybody was giving her all their attention. We were kind of wondering how she would deal with all the traveling and the upsetting of here schedule at home, but Joy is an easy baby and had no trouble adjusting to the changes and all the family attention.