This is my crazy, wonderful, hilarious, 10-person, incredible family.

Today at the afterschool program I work with, one of the little boys was telling me about his Thanksgiving and he said "It was terrible! There were only 8 people there!" Apparently only his grandparents and an aunt came or something like that...I laughed and told him that even if it was just me, my siblings and our parents, that we'd be more than that. 

Here we are in our crazy hilarity, taking over the streets.

I love this group of people so much.

 

It all fell apart from there...

 

Our dear sweetheart Luke. He is a thinker, a cuddly, sweet and yet growing up more and more every day thinker.

 

The never-paralleled Bri. She is hilarious, a reader of books and an admirer of Dr. Spencer Reid of the show Criminal Minds. She's become a great swimmer and is the perfect person to pick on, because she becomes playfully indignant and dishes it right back with an extra side of sauce.

This is our baby, Caleb. He's such a little man. We're pretty sure hanging out with almost exclusively teenagers has done wonders for him. He has no shortage of witty lines, today he walked up to our dad and said "If you want to be funnier Dad, be like me. Just say random stuff, but you have to use words that actually mean something." Yah, you get the picture.

We love him to the moon and back.

 

 

This is Adam. He's doing community college right now and working hard busing tables at a snazzy pizza joint. He is a whiz at all things internet and he also has pretty good taste in music and is just generally good looking.

 

And of course the beautiful Lindsay. She is detailed, she perseveres, she works hard and thoroughly. She is a really good swimmer and one of the most encouraging people that I know. 

 

We descended upon the streets of a place I'm growing to love, Ybor City.

 

And here she is, the girl you've seen a time or two on here. She's beautiful, she's smart, she's hilarious and can make that gorgeous face into some of the most comical grimaces I've ever seen. Gorgeous, smart and hilarious, she's amazing. She's conquering senior year with a vengeance.

My Ali...or as I call her...the Smalisunz.

   

This is my handsome, encouraging, hard-working Seth. Everyone should have a Seth. He puts up with me a lot and there are definitely events I wouldn't be as on time to without him. He's working incredibly hard at school, does loads and loads of homework, teaches kids how to swim as a job, and is starting to teach the youth at our church from the book of Romans intermittently. 

Seth, I love you so much.

 

And if it hadn't been for the girl from Alabama who stepped off the plane in Guam on an adventure of serving the Lord and met the handsome Air Force guy from South Carolina at her "Welcome to Guam" party who when she tried to play the "Let's just be friends" line, wouldn't hear of it and told her "If you want a friend, get a dog", we wouldn't be around. Here they are, 24 years later, looking great (despite having 4 teenagers, two 20+'s a 10 year old and a 6 year old driving them crazy all the time) and in love.

 

And here's me. Less photographed than the rest of those crazies, but still here. :D I'm so thankful for them. Thankful that they are supportive of my desire to go to Spain as a missionary. Thankful that they hug me when I need it and even when I don't. Thankful that they point me to Christ and allow me to be encouraging to them and in their lives.

There's a lot of us, but we love each other and that's pretty powerful.