Douthat State Park: rekindling the Myers-Benner-Showalter-Godshall tradition!

I'll probably be well on my way towards needing to split our 2023 blog book into two also, if I can't limit the photos I add to each post. But in this case I had pictures from multiple families to choose from, making it even harder to reign myself in! And we missed two years worth of gatherings due to COVID, so this post is long overdue! We started these yearly gatherings of three generations of friends back in 2013 and did it yearly until 2019. We missed 2020, 2021 and this was our rescheduled fall 2022 gathering. I say that strategically since I'm hoping this one didn't count for 2023 and we might squeeze another one in this fall with Kali - we missed her!

I alluded in the last post that there was some uncertainty last week if all of us would be healthy to gather, but Friday evening we found ourselves all together (minus Kali who is still in Pittsburgh) at a lovely lodge in Douthat State Park. Alida and Terah rode with my parents making their trip noisier and ours much quieter! They were the first to arrive and got to check out the lodge making them right ready and eager to give us a tour the second we arrived! This was the first time we were gathering somewhere other than Mom and Dad's Mountain House of Hope in Harman, WV. 

The weekend can we summed up in a few words and shared with a lot of pictures. It included so much game playing, delicious meals, giggling and lots of kiddo fun, hiking, exploring the playground and sandy beach by the lake, meaningful conversations, more yummy foods, puzzling, hike and seek, book reading, soccer, demolition (and consumption) of Alida's skyscraper gingerbread structure, and lots of laughter (especially when playing Ransom Notes). Here's some images of the time together!

One of my favorite traditions is the grandparents taking all the grandkids so that the four of us in the middle generation get to go for a hike with just our four sets of ears involved and no interruptions. It's always a lovely gift and makes me yearn for more! 

The pictures of their time while we hiked would make me hard pressed to say who had more fun. No need to figure that out, but they hadn't seemed to miss us in the least! And Terah would not have wanted to be with us because, while we were not lost, we didn't know where we were much of the time!

I loved Terah's portrait of Jason!

As mentioned, many many games were played! I'll give you just one sampling from Ransom Notes, but there were so many hilarious ones!

The preparation of delicious meals was divided between all of us such that each family was only in charge of one meal. As much as I loved our times at Mom and Dad's place in West Virginia, it felt good to be in a neutral space where no one had a weightier role hosting. I think the relaxation was spread a little more evenly this way, but I guess I can't be sure without polling everyone!

We brought along our wooden Christmas puzzle, which provided some good entertainment. And it should go down in history and that it was me and Dad who finished it, probably the two biggest "unpuzzlers" in our family! I did have to keep swatting my mom's hands away in order to accomplish it!

Alida sneakily brought along The Book with No Pictures and Grandpa (Myers) responded positively to Terah's request to read her a book before seeing the kids mischievously race down the hall to fetch it! There was also a reading of Mom's new snow book that Dad got for her at the gift shop. That was probably about the longest the kids sat still at any one time other than maybe mealtimes.

I only observed the soccer game (and took pictures). I think most of the kids have now surpassed my abilities!!! The dynamic in our times together is definitely different than when a handful of the humans were still in diapers or needing naps or wanting to be held much of the time. That was beautiful and special too, just in a different way. It's pretty fun to see the kids and their dads engaged in a soccer game all together. 

Sunday morning came WAY TOO FAST! While I was not as verbal as my kiddos about it, I felt all the things they were expressing too! I felt sad about leaving and tired after not sleeping as well as in my own bed and wishing for a longer time with such dear friends! We all felt our feels on the way home and then the settling back in wasn't too rocky! Hopefully it won't be 2+ years before we do it again!!! There's something really precious about gathering intergenerationally with others with whom we have so much shared life history. And to have that shared history and also really enjoy spending lots of time together is a gift. We did our best to savor it and eagerly anticipate the next time!