This weekend was our annual Kelso reunion in Dowling Park, Florida.
That’s how this post started when I wrote that line a long, long time ago. two weeks ago to be exact. I don’t know what’s wrong with my blogging mojo but I’m sure it will return one of these days and then I won’t have enough time to expel all the stored up stories. So…here is an old new post about our reunion at Dowling Park, a little spot on the Suwanee River that has a wonderful retreat for our family to enjoy canoeing, walking, games, food and each other.
It’s been three years since the term “annual” has been accurate. There have been several events and mishaps that have caused us to miss the reunion or canceled the reunion all together in the past few years and we have missed it. It seemed so strange that our boys had little or no memory of the reunion and it was fun to include them in this years get together.
Our group was somewhat small this year as we were missing one large portion of the family. There were several though that I was surprised to see and glad to have the opportunity to sit down and chat with.
We arrived on Friday after an uneventful drive down and were able to join the rest of the gang for dinner at the little on campus restaurant. It was warm. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised by that, but somehow I was. We got situated and then just hung out with all the aunts, uncles and cousins available. The boys were excited to see the playground near the house we were staying in and immediately made themselves familiar with everything around them. We showed them the river after dinner, walking out behind the restaurant to the dock which was comfortably low on the river this year.
Saturday was planned with a canoe trip in which Aron and I stayed behind and used our time to read and play and make dessert for dinner that night. The rest of the gang enjoyed the wildlife and the river while the morning was still reasonably cool. When they got back, we had a simple lunch and made the boys rest for a little while. They didn’t nap which was fine except that Aron asked me if he could please go lay down on his bed that night. He was exhausted. Happy, but exhausted.
Our afternoon was simple and sweet, included some games and books and walks and conversation and lots of laughter. The grill was heated up and the chicken laid out, everybody pitched in where necessary and dinner was served. The rest of the girls gave me a pass during dinner clean up so I could bathe my three boys and then we all went for a walk around the campus before devotion time that night which Kris led.
Our final morning of the reunion was Sunday and breakfast was followed by Kris’ dad leading the morning devotion. There was some business discussed regarding payment of the facilities and shall we do it again next year, and then we hustled to get our things together and pack up. We took some pictures together outside, as is tradition, and then ran through the house for a final check of personal items and met outside again for goodbye’s. In years previous the entire gang, save one or two, would all caravan into Live Oak to have lunch at the Dixie Grill. This year, for various reasons, Kris’ immediate family were the only ones who could make that appointment. We enjoyed our favorite entree of turkey and dressing while the boys filled up on grilled cheese and mini corn dogs. We then said our final goodbye’s to Kris’ parents and his brother Keith and his family and hit the road.
Our trip home went pretty well. We were able to take full advantage of God’s protection and though we saw some unfortunate things along the way, we coasted through unscathed. In south Georgia we saw traffic slowing down but all lanes were still open and moving so we must have come through minutes after a big accident. We first noticed that there was hardly any traffic in the southbound lanes of I-75 so we knew something must have happened on that side of the road. Sure enough as we got closer we saw several cars pulled off of the road and a mangled mess of a car sitting on it’s side with several people standing around as a few emergency medical personal were working hard to extricate another individual from the vehicle. We were almost so distracted by this to notice the even more shocking site of a tour bus sitting somewhat perilously at the top of a bridge overpass on our right. We were going slow enough that we did see it and when I did I gasped. The bus had obviously been run off the road somehow and had passed through a deep ditch before driving straight up the embankment. As we passed I could see the dim silhouettes of those still on the bus and I looked at Kris and said, “there’s kids on that bus.” I couldn’t have sworn that they were kids from the silhouettes, but it turns out I was right. I felt sick. Of course, not knowing what happened or how badly people were hurt it just churned in my heart as I could do nothing but pass on and pray. The boys were concerned but not upset, in fact they were somewhat enjoying the sight of cars in strange predicaments. Who can blame them. They had questions though, about the people who were in the vehicles and we all prayed together as we drove away. Later, I was able to find an article online and was glad to report that though there were many people involved no one was killed and even the one individual who needed to be life-flighted to a hospital in Macon, was up and walking around that evening. Praise the Lord for His grace. Here are several articles if you want to see more pictures. Only one of them shows the car we saw first. It was quite a mess.
We took a detour soon after passing the accident and enjoyed a brief visit to the Aviation Museum in south GA. The boys loved it and it allowed us to stretch our legs a little and break up the trip. Also…it was free. We took a few pictures worth sharing.
We got home late last night and slipped the boys into their beds as quickly as we could. They were still up around 6:00 this morning and I was glad I didn’t have to wrestle with them to get them ready for school and the grocery store.
It was a nice weekend and though it was brief we got a lot out of it. As always though, we are glad to be home.