#1444 Reunion - Part 2

We arrived in Louisville a day earlier than the other families. We did this for 2 reasons - I knew we had a long trip and we would not do well traveling 20 hours in a 48 hour span. We also wanted to make sure we had time to visit the Louisville Slugger Museum. It turned out to be a great time for our whole family. Joshua thought he had gone to baseball heaven! Here he is posing with one of Mickey Mantle's bats. We got to tour the factory and see how the bats are made, especially how they make individual bats for all the professional players.

Michelle loves baseball! She has gone to all her big brother's games this spring and if you ask her what she wants to be when she grows up, she will probably tell you either a mermaid or a baseball player. She insisted we take her picture as well! When we toured the factory, we were each given a miniature Louisville Slugger bat. Just what every parent wants their 3 year old to have! Ha! Needless to say, these went into hiding as soon as we could get ahold of them.

Bill Jr. played little league baseball and still enjoys watching the game, so he enjoyed the tour as well. I was told recently he rarely appears in our blog, so I am going to make a point of putting more pictures of Bill Jr. in the blog.

The museum has a section for young kids to play, a batting cage, movie about the history of baseball and Louisville sluggers, factory tour and much more. We were able to order Josh his own Louisville Slugger with his name burned into the handle just like the big leaguer's. If you ever go to Louisville, take the time to visit the museum. We had a great time!

Later in the afternoon, we went back to the hotel for a short nap and some pool time. As we were at the pool, we began to see the other families arrive. Once we all arrived, we grabbed some sub-sandwiches along the way and went to a park to let the kids run around and let the parents catch up with one another's lives. It was a fun park, with water fountains for the kids to run through and lots of fun swings and slides.

I took this picture of Sara and Angela just for Renee Mongold. We missed you lady!

Bill and Lizzy were great big siblings to watch Michelle while we talked with the other families. It was a warm evening - Teresa asked if we could please plan our next reunion somewhere cold, like Maine. After the 100+degree weather we had been having on the east coast, the mid-80's didn't seem so bad to us. Sorry Teresa - we really weren't trying to melt your family. (:

On the way to the park, we saw this really interesting building facade in the middle of the road. It was literally the front of an old building with the road circling around it. Our kids inherited their Dad's sense of adventure and their mom's quirky sense of humor, so of course we had to stop and take some pictures. This was such a pretty picture of Elizabeth.

Things kind of went downhill after that. I don't know if you can really see our faces, but we were trying to re-enact a haunted house.

On Saturday we planned a trip to the Louisville Zoo. Here are all the kids, at least those who were 10 and under. Starting from the left (as you look at the picture) are Molly & Carson, Josh & Michelle, Maya, Owen, Carter & Cole, Leah with Eli & Jeremy.

Alex was continuing his organized picture strike, so we had to catch him seperately!

I love this picture! Michelle had a lot of fun with these girls. Even though Maya and Molly are both almost 2 years older than Michelle, they were very close to the same size and played so sweetly together. Most of Michelle's good friends back home are boys, so it was nice to see her get some "girl time", especially with these girls who hold such a special place in our hearts.

Now the brothers get in on the action!

Probably one of the best parts of the trip for us was meeting all the older siblings. We traveled to China with all our kids, but most families did not. They are all such nice kids. There were a lot of boys Josh's age, and he had a great time with the McClintock kids. Cole and Carter are very nice boys. Carter is not a picture taker either - if I could get one of him and Alex together, well, that would have been a huge accomplishment!

Here is Molly with her Mommy.

You may notice that there is no Josh in this picture. Joshua kept running ahead, and hanging out with some of the other boys. We were all walking at different paces, hanging out and talking with different families, so we did not worry that Josh wasn't with us. At one point, about halfway through the zoo, we all gathered at the splash zone to let the kids get wet and cool off a little. That was when we caught up with the other families and realized Josh was lost. Bill found a zoo employee who called the security team and they reported Josh was with them. At least he knew enough to find someone who worked there and let them know he was lost. I think Bill was a little annoyed, because Josh did not seem too remorseful once we retrieved him. Instead of feeling like he was in "zoo jail", the zoo employees made it a fun experience for Josh. It seems he told them he was sad because he missed the rhino exhibit because he was lost, so they took him inside the rhino cage and let him pet one. Gheeze!

Leah and her Mommy in the petting zoo.

Josh also had a lot of fun with the Smith boys. Eli & Jeremy are such nice kids, and for a long time Jeremy was our "extra child" was we traveled through the zoo. At one point I smiled at Bill and told him, "See, we have room for another kid in our family." To that, Lizzy replied, "If we knew we could get such a nice, quiet child like Jeremy, that would be fine mom. But we don't get quiet children - we have kids like Josh and Michelle." Good point Lizzy - but I wouldn't have it any other way. It's amazing to see how all these kids are in the families they were meant to have. I believe with all my heart God choose each of these kids and their parents for one another. It amazes me to see how they all fit together!

Another fun thing at the zoo was seeing a local FCC group. (Families with Chinese Children) I noticed as we were walking though there were several kids that looked like ours but weren't part of our group. As we stopped for a while to play at one of the playgrounds Sara spoke to one of the parents and found out this was one of their FCC outings. So cool!

After the zoo, we made a quick detour to Churchhill Downs to see where they run the Kentucky Derby. Everyone except Lizzy had fallen asleep in the car for a little nap, so we just took a quick pic and headed back to the hotel.

I'll post the rest of the trip tomorrow...