The Brysons: Smicker Family Reunion

The Kennedy Clan, warriors all.

In recent years, we've gone camping with the Kennedy branch of the Smicker family, but this year, it was a bit cold, Rebecca was pregnant, Jerry somehow misplaced his fifth-wheel, and it was decided we'd stay at the Comfort Inn. We didn't realize until Dad tried to join us in our room that we were at the downtown Fernandina Beach Comfort Inn and everybody else was at the other one near the beach. Oops! We missed out on some of the hanging out on Friday night, but met everybody at Jessie and Johnny's on Saturday.

We didn't have our classic orange-ball-in-the-pantyhose game, but the auction, volleyball, and all the good eatin' went on as usual. Aunt Hattie was able to come, too, and we all hope that whe'll be around for many more reunions. She always reminds me of being a little kid, listening to my grandma and her sisters playing Rummy until 2 in the morning, with the special rules that you couldn't find in any Hoyle rulebook. Two of diamonds, two of spades, Ace of spades are the high trumps, for starters.

After the reunion, we headed back to the hotel and hung out in the lobby, eating pizza and leftover banana pudding. The kids were happy to play with Bendaroos and the guys watched the game. The ladies, of course, took the time to catch up on all the news and agonized over which pizza toppings to order;)

The next day we headed out to Fort Clinch for the morning and stopped at Sonny's barbeque for lunch. For some reason, it took about ten recounts to figure out how many we had in our party, and I'm still not sure we got it right! Nineteen? No, Twenty-one. This time I'm sure. Until next year!

Me and Aunt Karen

Allen and Rebecca Kennedy

Shannon in foreground, Jerry, Richard, Sharran, and Ralph in the background.

Untold numbers of kids on the hayride at the family reunion. Later we had a golf contest to see who could hit over the pond closest to the hole on the green on the far side, and 10 year old Garrett won.