Tonight was the big family get together over at Uncle Chris’ house for Great Uncle Gary being in town; Great Uncle Gary, Betty, Uncle Chris, Aunt Tracey, Delaney, Madelyn, Kylie, Daddy and Melissa were all there. When we first arrived at Uncle Chris’s the girls were being a little shy around Great Uncle Gary, but once they saw how open Kylie was with him, everyone warmed up real quick. The girls all had a blast playing and showing Great Uncle Gary all the things they could do, and he really enjoyed seeing all his Grand Nieces. After a bit of playing we decided it was time to go for dinner, and surprisingly the only place that could accept such a large group (6 adults and 3 kids) in a timely manner was Carrabba’s (other restaurants were telling us they wouldn’t be able to get us in for 2 hours). The majority of us had never been there, but you really can’t go wrong with Italian food, and this place was no exception. The food was delicious, and on top of that it’s all made fresh daily from scratch; the place doesn’t even have a microwave in the building! After having an incredible meal we all went back to Uncle Chris’ where we all talked and watched the girls play. Eventually it was time for us to go and we said goodnight to everyone and good bye to Great Uncle Gary, hopefully it wont be so long until the next time we see him, the girls were quit upset because they knew they were saying good bye and it would be a long time before we saw him again. It’s amazing how quickly these girls catch on and grasp things. All in all though it was a very nice couple of days with family and I truly hope I can find a way to spend more time with my brother and his family, because they live so near and yet we see each other so rarely.

Tonight we had a special rare event, we got to have dinner with my Uncle (Kylie’s Great Uncle) Gary. He and his friend Betty are out here to go up and visit Mackinac Island and see the beautiful colors of fall in Michigan’s beautiful north. But first they stopped down here to see us and Uncle Chris and his family. Tomorrow we are planning on the entire family getting together and spending some time together and having dinner, but tonight it was just Kylie, Melissa and I. It was really nice to see him again and he really loved Kylie and Kylie really loved him too. After dinner we went back to there hotel for a little while so we could spend some more time catching up and because Kylie really wanted to see his “house.” It was real nice couple of hours and it will be even better tomorrow when we have the whole family together.