can't we just enjoy the outdoors???

The weather was so beautiful on Sabbath that 8 of us tried to take a trip to Lula Lake to enjoy the outdoors. Unfortunately, the ranger had other ideas (I admit we did do exactly what the sign said not to do by parking at the exit and walking in but... he could have been a little nicer) so we took off to Signal Point to try again. After parking in nonexistant parking, we enjoyed the overlook for a few minutes before heading home.

The newest couple, Jonathan and Kelli

On top of the world

The boys: Chris, Jonathan, Jerad, and Ryan

The girls: Kelli, Brittany, Katie, and me

the whole group (almost)

Dad sent me some of his pictures so I thought I'd include a few. Here's the biggest group picture we managed to get...

Family: the best heavenmade invention!

Our family reunion was held at Prince William National Forest. We had our own campground with a lodge, meeting house, infirmary, staff house, bath house, playground, and about 6 cabins. They were pretty rustic. Built in 1936, you could see the light through the wood slats in the morning and they smelled like you were walking into a cabin museum at some historic site. Stephanie and I agreed that if we had been about 10 we would have been exploring them all day long and playing all kinds of make-believe fun.

The Lodge with the kitchen and meeting room

Bathouse on the right, cabin on the left with more behind going down the road

I shared a room with Stephanie and Lindsey. Unfortunately, a mouse decided to eat his lunch right behind my head all night long which made for a hard time sleeping. It was in the 40's but my trusty sleeping bag handled it superbly (better than the 29 degrees at night last weekend!). I must say I will be glad for a full weekend of sleep in someplace semi-warm now that I'm back home!

Friday evening the family started to gather. None of these pictures shows the magnitude of how many of us there are because people who lived in the DC area were coming and going, but mom says there are about 65 of us total. As mom says, to give you some perspective, Jacob's family had about 75 in it when they went to Egypt and think about how many left for the Promised Land 200 years later! It's amazing to think that all of these people are connected to one couple.

The siblings: (back row) Ronnie #2, Cathy #3, Jimmy #1
(front row) Renee #6, Kit #4, Sharon #5

11/17 cousins. Over the course of the weekend 14 of us were there. The four girls in the front middle are the youngest cousins and probably the closest. Stephanie and Lindsey are a year apart and Keri (beside me) is a month older than me.

Me with Sydney, one of my cousin Janet's twins who used us as their big play toys all weekend.

Enjoying the France tradition of yellow cake with special hard chocolate icing that is so hard to make only Uncle Ronnie makes it now. My grandma made this cake for birthdays and other special occasions. Guess some of us cousins better learn how to make it before the secret is lost forever...

Uncle Ronnie was in charge of the games on Saturday night. Here some of the 2nd cousins enjoy the candy after Nick whacked Dora's head off.

My cousin Brian and I try to figure out how to get ourselves untangled. The "adults" had fun trying to give us suggestions that only made it worse. I knew I'd done this before but I could not remember how to get undone!

Mummifying Brent

Most of the brave campers who stayed in the ancient see-thru cabins.

I really learned how amazing and diverse my family is this weekend. I could have spent many more hours listening to them talk and getting to know them better. I also found out that we are related somehow to John Wayne and our direct ancestor is a Pvt. James France who was in the Revolutionary army at the Battle of Yorktown. Above all, I've realized what an amazing woman my grandmother was as the matriarch of this entire family. It's too bad it took her death to make all of us realize how important family is and how much we needed to get together for this family reunion. I'm glad we got to spend a weekend doing exactly what she would have wanted: spending time together.

See you in heaven, Grandma...

The place I belong

Stephanie and I took off Thursday morning on our 8.5 hour trek to Prince William Forest for the France Family Reunion. My abhorrence for 81 has grown even more since we had to stay on it for 300 miles (or 5 years). But once we got into Virginia we started passing by many familiar places from our childhood.

Stephanie and I were born at Martha Jefferson Hospital in Charlottesville. Until we were 4 and 4 mo. respectively we lived in Waynesboro, VA and this place is probably more like home than any other town we've lived in. This is where Grandma's house was and the place we always came back to for holidays or family get togethers no matter where we moved. This is the Waynesboro SDA church (right on the highway!) and probably what we'd consider our alltime home church. The church bought the property for this building while my dad was the pastor and my uncles helped build it several years later.
We stopped at the overlook into Afton (Grandma's house is probably somewhere down there) and both of us remembered how much we love these mountains and how much this feels like home. This has to be the most beautiful place on earth to me!

These signs are all over VA highways but what exactly does this mean? How can they see your license plate from the air? And what do they do, drop a bomb on you? Do a low fly by? I don't get it...

Thursday night the main portion of the family hadn't arrived from TN due to car trouble so the Fords had the entire camp ourselves. Friday my Uncle Kit, Aunt Pat, and cousin Lindsey arrived and we took a trip into downtown DC. Lindsey met us there and spent the day with us! It was quite windy...

My Aunt Sharon, who works in a building near the White House, treated us to lunch on top of the Hotel Washington with great views of the White House roof and the mall.

This is the part of our family we're probably the closest to. We still go to their house often to share holidays and play with their dog, Laddie.
Here's Lindsey trying to figure out her new digital camera. Hopefully we'll get to see more pictures on her blog now! (hint hint)

Where North Carolina and Virginia meet at the WWII memorial.

Camping part 2

Carrie mailed me a CD of her pictures from our camping weekend, here's a few I couldn't resist sharing...

Carrie gets the look...

A woodsy weekend

This weekend Ryan, Carrie, Ryan, Mary Jane, Randy, and I took a trip to Cumberland Falls State Park in Kentucky. Be sure to check Carrie's and MJ's blogs for pics too! Despite the extra long trip there (thanks to my being cursed by an unexplainable attraction for 81 for no apparent reason), the mishap of the not-so-missing tent poles, and the frigid weather, we're back home safe and sound. I've decided that mummy bags and crocs are a campers best friend!

The temperature was 36 degrees according to Ryan H's car and boy did we feel it. Fires were the order of the weekend. Fortunately we found lots of firewood and the bathrooms were heated and equipped with hand... er... hair dryers that Randy found most useful.

(Check out the huge log in our fire above!)
Although our campsite was really rocky, Carrie and I found a nice soft site right on the edge of a cliff which was actually taller than it looks.

On Sabbath we took a hike to Cumberland Falls...

(where the Ryans had fun skipping rocks)

and Eagle Falls.

I think we all had trouble sleeping due to the cold (and rocks, except those of you who brought air mattresses) but Ryan definitely had the hardest go of it. He slept maybe 4 hours over both nights which made him susceptible to dozing in strange places...

Fortunately, he did fall asleep at the campground for about 20 minutes. Maybe he was also tired out from being the firemaster and building multiple fires all weekend.


Taking down to go home...