The Icing on the Cupcakes

We are back from our family camp (Nazareth not Cana Colony - although we did attend Cana two years ago) and I will write a bit about our wonderful week in a future post. However, before our departure last Sunday we travelled about 1.5 hours away from home to celebrate the marriage of Dave's cousin. The lovely couple had actually wed in April in the very big city and the July celebration was a chance for the extended family to get together for a bit of a reunion. The event was held at the groom's father's homestead which, as you can see, is absolutely beautiful. There were many people in attendance but not that many children. In fact, there were probably less than 20 children and ours and those of Dave's cousin, Tanya, accounted for nine of that number. It was Dave who took the following picture since, in his words, without these women the kids would, well ... ummm, not be here. So, here are Tanya and I looking far more like close relatives than Tanya and Dave.

And here is Dave looking rather manly. The John-Deere capped fellow is Dave's father and his mother is the lady sporting the fine head of white hair.

Along with the many salads, cold cuts, cheeses and buns was a three tiered plate (bottomless, I might add) of chocolate cupcakes decorated in the brightest colours of icing that I have ever seen. Now, when it comes to food, I pick my battles carefully. When at home they follow a fairly balanced regimen; but when we go to other houses, parties and and events I'm pretty laissez-faire. As one friend of ours says, "I'm happy if my kids eat chips." Consequently, I really have no idea how many of those cupcakes were consumed by my crew but I do know that they were all a little sugar shocked when we left. Here is Joseph making his way through a purple cupcake.

Outside of the consumption of cupcakes, they also enjoyed playing soccer with their second cousins. Ben trying out the orange variety. Note the glazed eyes.

This is a pre-cupcake shot when he was still pretty lucid and fully functional.

And, of course, Joseph found a ball. He actually spotted it the minute we de-vanned. His eyes lit up as he zeroed in on the red ball; he looked to the right and the left; mumbled the word ball and scooped it up before its rightful owner knew what had happened. He was quite upset when it was later used in a soccer game and attempted to follow its progress from player to player while crying, "Ball!! My ball!" We departed soon after.

And this is a picture of the nine second cousins: four belong to Dave and I and the other five belong to Dave's cousin and husband. They are a fine family of five under the age of nine - two boys and three girls.

This was my first attempt at a cousin shot until we realised that one member was missing and the ball was not an adequate stand in for a five year old boy. Despite the missing boy, this shot serves as adequate evidence of the mini matriarchs in each family - can you pick them out?

And after previewing this post, I want to clarify that Tanya is not the cousin who got married in April.