Gem-Fest 2018

Each year we gather with Buddie’s family in some part of the country. This year we headed to New Hampshire and a good time was had by all. Getting this time with our nieces and nephews brings such joy. Watching all the cousins swarming around together or wrestling and visiting with members of the family they don’t get to see often…swells my heart.

Events in no particular order:

Buddie and his parents and I took a day to attend a pro-family rally in protest of this administration’s efforts to tear families apart. We found the UU’s in the crowd and stood with them on the side of love:

One of the afternoons we spent at a family fun spot with all sorts of different video games. We all had a great time, and I sent Barton pictures of the games he and I spent many quarters playing in college in the back room at the gas station.

Though shorter than the Alpine slide in Austria, a good time was had going up the mountain and coastering down in New Hampshire. The view at the top was fantastic:

Random shots:

In honor of his parents’ 50th Anniversary, one night Buddie took all the adults (except me) out for dinner while Monkey and Buster made dinner for the cousins, and I got to enjoy time with the kiddos, which I adore.

Camp Walt Whitman, where I spent one fine summer, was only a few miles from where we were staying, so our crew made a pilgrimage over there one afternoon. Buddie’s comment was, “It looks like a movie set of a summer camp.”

With my bunk back in the day:

Spooky Walt Whitman was still in the dining hall:

More assorted shots:

The stairwell in the main house where we stayed was very reminiscent of Massadoah:

No surprise to anyone that shortly an attempt was made to knock each other’s marshmallows off the skewers.[/caption]

I love that google photos pulls together photos like this. Top photo from Gem-Fest in Indiana a couple years ago. Bottom photo from this year:

We’ve vacationed in New Hampshire multiple times, and we tried to recreate this photo we took at Lost River Gorge back in 2007:

Nailed it?[/caption]

Another year complete: