Bell Bonanza

A few weeks back, we had a mini-Bell Reunion in Kansas City.  When I was growing up they used to occur at least weekly.  We'd all gather around my Grandparents house and visit until the wee hours of the morning.  To this day, that is still one of my favorite places to travel back to in my head.  It was pure chaos but in a good way.  Nowadays, we are more spread apart and thus only have reunions every once in a blue moon.  I'm thankful the moon turned blue in KC and I'm especially grateful we had the opportunity to go see it.  :D


The festivities coincided with the weekend of the KC Temple Run and also my cousin, Nathan's graduation celebration.  Since most of us were already within range of each other, it didn't take much effort to plan a get together and talk a few more into showing up/driving the distance.  


We started the festivities at Famous Dave's for an early lunch.  We are a large group and a loud group.  Kudos to our poor waitresses who had to deal with all of us - I can't even remember how many people we had there.  All I do remember is that I couldn't hear a thing from all the noise and combined I think there were 7 glasses of drinks spilled.  Some while cleaning up the others.  And no, the majority were not kids that were spilling them.  Poor, poor waiters.


We really got to let loose afterwards when we all met up at a local park and sat and visited a little longer before we all went our separate directions.  There was LOTS of picture taking and lots of catching up going on.  I even got to meet my new cousin-in-law that I hadn't even met before.  I think everyone had a blast and it was so good to see everyone again.  


The weekend festivities were chaotic and seemed to fly by in a blur but I'm very grateful they got to fly by in the first place.  It made the craziness of driving there/back worth it.....almost.  ;-)  It's still too soon to rehash but lets just say our trip up involved a speeding ticket (guilty as charged) and our return trip involved running out of gas...literally...yeah it was a first...thank you Grandma. ;-)  Good thing she earned her keep in helping me juggle two kiddos the whole weekend since John had to stay behind and work.  

The Bell Family....and that wasn't even all of us!

The Cousins.  We grew up hanging out with each other so it was so weird to see all our kids playing together.    Whodathunk we'd grow up and produce offspring?  

The Bell siblings.  My Dad is in the middle.  Now you can see where I get my photogenic abilities. ;o)

It was a great weekend to spend together.  Hopefully it won't take us so many years to do it all over again!