Reunion!

Jeff's brother Tim and his wife Donna moved up to Port Elgin a year and a half ago. They have 4 kids and 1 more on the way. Payton misses them tremendously. They have come to Kitchener for a night and were staying at the Waterloo Inn. So last night we went for a visit. When we got there and were walking into the lobby of the hotel, they were just unloading out of the van at the same time. All the kids ran over to Payton and they were all hugging and jumping up and down with excitement. I heard alot of "I missed you" and "I haven't seen you in so long". The girl behind the registration desk was giggling at all the drama. After all the hellos and a quick visit to their room, all the kids went swimming. They had a blast. It was difficult to get Payton out of there so we made arrangements for them to come and visit at our house the next morning.

Often she will say that she misses Zoe and the boys. Mostly she talks about Roin. He is the youngest right now at 2 years old. Payton has always been a little mother hen (actually we have nicknamed her "smother hen") so when a baby or toddler is around she kicks into high gear. She wants to feed them, carry them, have them sit on her knee, whatever. However with Roin she just can't contain herself.

Actually now that I look at this picture, it doesn't really look like Roin is resisting very much. He is probably just happy to be interacting with someone other than his two older brothers and older sister. He is very cute. We have all nicknamed him "squishy roey". As much as it is chaos with that many kids all at once, I do miss having them around too. Zoe is a brilliant 10 year old that is a delight to be with. Deign is almost 8 and loves soccer, video games and anything that Uncle Jeff likes to do. Quade is almost 5 and just fights for his place in the ranking. He is definately the fiesty one of the group. Brilliant just the same though. Roin is the youngest right now at 2 years old and other than being cute, I haven't really experienced his personality yet. I'm sure he will follow the others and be charming in his own way as well.



From left to right is Deign, Zoe, Payton, Quade and Roin in the front. A good looking group of kids if you ask me. Before they moved I used to think quite often that I was glad Payton had some cousins that were her age and that at one time in their life (high school), they would all be at the same school. With Payton being an only child, I was glad she would have some family to rely on at school. Her and Zoe can be two peas in a pod at times. Zoe has a very good understanding of Payton and her ways and is very patient and tolerant. Jeff has had conversations with her about Payton and Zoe just gets it. Like I said, a brilliant child to say the least.

With us putting our new trailer up in Port Elgin for the season, I am sure alot of time will be spent together this summer and I am sure some great memories will be made and some fantastic pictures to top it off. I am sure there will be some great scrapbook pages created from our summer fun and I hope alot of them contain these 5 kids.

"A cousin is a little bit of childhood that can never be lost!"