Last Friday Jeff (06/17/05) and I shipped the cat off, packed up the car and drove 6.5 hours to Mars Hill, NC for the Lewis Family Reunion. Even though this was the 3rd reunion held in 5 years, the last time we were there was in 2001. My paternal grandfather's family hails from a tiny town north of Asheville called Walnut.

After some slight confusion with the hotel rooms (if you book more than in the same name, and not all parties are arriving at the same time, don't let the hotel mark those additional rooms as checked in.) we crashed around 2am.

Saturday we headed up the mountain to what used to be an old school house. After a fire destroyed most of the building it was rebuilt as a community center. While helping set up for the vow renewals my grandparents were going to be doing later in the day, we chatted with various members of my extended family.

Everytime we have a reunion or an event where a lot of family is present I have to get the whole family tree explained again. I guess I just don't see most of the people enough to remember.

After eating and waiting for the rain to subside my grandparents renewed their vows. This past December they celebrated their 51st anniversary. Afterwards we had a mini-reception complete with cake and punch.

Most people headed out shortly after so the clean up crew got to work. You know what I mean; there's always a group of people that stay to help clean up after any event. Once the 'schoolhouse' was properly cleaned we hung out at one of my great-aunt's home for a while.

My great-grandparent's (both deceased) house is at the top of the mountain. A few years ago, a cousin moved in and began renovating the entire house, barn, and land. It's been really neat to see what he's done with the place. The old barn, once used for drying tobacco which was grown in the fields, has been turned into a horse barn. He works for the State Police and takes care of several horses used by the department.

Later on we had dinner with my parents then went back to the hotel. Sunday morning all the immediate family (parents, brother, grandparents, aunt, cousin) met at the local Huddle House for breakfast before getting on the road.

Jeff and I headed north, Bruce & his girlfriend west, and the rest went south. My parents spent a few days in Kingstree visting with my grandparents before going back to Arkansas. If the timing hadn't been so bad (work) it would have been nice to go with them. At least we got to visit for the weekend.

It's nice having these reunions; I have so many family members I don't know, sometimes is hard to believe we're all related.