Why does it have to be hard?!

Avila Beach Earnest Family Reunion

Lark and Steve Earnest with all 24 of their grandchildren. Number 25 will be born before the end of the year. Talk about multiplying and replenishing!

I'm having a hard time getting motivated around here. Hard time getting motivated to sew, to clean, to do laundry, to make beds, to make kids do productive things. It all just seems so hard. Needless to say the blog seems impossible. But my sister-in-law Chelsea just sent along some photos from our smashingly fun family reunion in Avila Beach, CA. It got me reminiscing. That was some great family fun. I hope we'll do it again. It's so unique to have so many cousins so close in age. My kids are so lucky to be part of such an awesome family. The memories formed with cousins during childhood are the kind of memories that last a lifetime.

Ruby and Jane are only 1 of 4 sets of twins!

The official purpose of our family reunion was to celebrate Lark and Steve's 40th wedding anniversary. Of course we had to attempt family pictures to commemorate such a gathering.

Brooke's kids look like they should be Darin's kids.

Here's how Henry and George entertained themselves during any given moment on our entire vacation...

On Thursday night, June 25th, we went into San Luis Obispo for dinner at the Farmer's Market. The girls were entertained by the street musician in front of Cold Stone for a very long time. He even let them join his band by playing the maracas (how do you spell that?!) at one point in time.

Henry and George got to try rock climbing.

And all the kids got an awesome "back alley" tour of San Luis by their ultra cool aunt Brooke, who also owns the Cold Stone (with husband Joe, of course) where everyone enjoyed free ice cream!

On another day we took the kids to a picturesque farm and petting zoo.

We did actually attempt going out to the beach a few times. But with the water temps being a good 15 degrees cooler than down in San Juan Capistrano (where it is already cold), it was sometimes a hard sell.




Thanks for supplying the abundance of boogie board, Todd and Amber! George sure had a blast with all the boy cousins.


Since one had to first walk right past the beautiful pool and hot tub before getting to the sandy beach, I have to admit that even I was hard pressed to find a reason why I should move past the beautifully inviting yellow lounge chairs.


We loved the cute little beach streets that were right down from the hotel. A late afternoon shaved ice treat became a daily ritual. I'm telling you, life at the beach is really hard to beat. Especially when surrounded by family every where you turn.

Thanks for a great reunion Earnests. We miss you all. I hate feeling so far away...