7QT: Family Reunion at Oyster Haven (#lakesidepearls)

I've gotten so rusty when it comes to blogging this summer, I might have to oil up my fingers with some WD-40 so I can work the keys on this here old laptop of mine!

But I have good excuses, readers, I do--16 of them, to be exact: 5 sons, 4 daughters-in-law, and 7 grandchildren, who came and spent the first week in August with us at our Oyster Haven home on Lake Champlain.  (That doesn't explain the rest of my lazy, hooky-playing summer, though, does it?  But I digress.)

You know what?  I think I'm going to find 7 pictures that I'd like to share with you from our too-good-to-be-true week, amongst the many winners we had taken by an old friend who is also a professional photographer.  So this has now become a 7QT post!

Huzzah!  Blogging AND linking up...it's a banner day here at String of Pearls!

Well, you know how when you build an upcoming event up in your mind ahead of time, and then you worry that it can't help but fall short of your heightened expectations?  That did not happen.  My husband and I have been eagerly anticipating our vacation week with the kids and grandkids for almost a year now, imagining how wonderful it was going to be...and then it ended up being even better than we'd hoped.  I mean, by a mile.

QT #1: A Little Slice of Heaven
The setting helped, of course.  At our Oyster Haven retreat, there is a deck and a large patio out back, and best of all, an expanse of lawn that resembles a football field leading down to a private beach.

And this is the spectacular view from the back yard.

QT #2: Our Boys
We had our whole team together for the week--even our youngest son, who flew home from Germany.  He almost didn't make it, and it was a bit of a "Planes, Trains, and Automobiles" sort of disastrous trip for him.  He arrived a few days later than expected, but still was able to spend 4-plus solid quality days with his brothers and their families.  He deemed it worth all the hassles he encountered to get stateside.

So we had our 5 boys with us (they are in birth order here from R to L).

QT #3: Our Girls

And we had our 4 girls with us, too (4 lovely dark-eyed brunettes--because apparently, as was noted in one of our humorous discussions during the week, our sons have a "type"!).

I'd like to show you our beautiful grandchildren as well; but I am trying to respect our oldest son's wish to keep his precious girls' faces off the Internet as much as possible.  Just know that there was cuteness times 7 at Oyster Haven, and that's no exaggeration!  And the little cousins really seemed to enjoy being together for the week.

QT #4: The Team Captain and His Co-Captain

My husband and I are as proud as can be of our team of Pearls.  We had our daughter-in-law Preciosa, a talented t-shirt designer, make up team shirts for the whole family.  Here's the captain, the #1 guy, and the second member who joined his team when we got married in 1980.

Together...we're Tom Brady.  ;)

QT #5: The Original Team of 7

And here's the original team of 7, with our boys wearing numbers assigned according to when they joined Team Pearl by birth.  I love the old-school look of these team baseball jerseys.

QT #6: We'll Have These Numbers for Life
The adults will be able to use their shirts for years to come--because we are definitely going to make this Oyster Haven week an annual tradition in our family.

QT #7: The Gang's All Here (All 18 of Us!)

The little ones will have new shirts made as they outgrow their infant onesies and toddler-sized t-shirts.  But everyone will keep their same number, assigned to show the order of when each teammate joined the family (whether by marriage or birth) for life.  (Thank you, Pinterest, for this genius idea that we unabashedly copied for our own use!)

It has been a tough summer for our family, with the untimely death of my dear brother-in-law.  It has also been a tiring summer for my husband and me, cleaning and managing our VRBO house and making sure it's ready for the next renters (they've been back-to-back most of the summer, a good "problem" to have!).  But this week we had with our gang left us with beautiful memories that will last a lifetime.  I'm so glad we captured some of those memories with this photo shoot.

Here's one more picture (I know it's not 8QT, but this is just too cute not to share).  When the photographer was trying to get some decent shots of Papa and Grammy with all 7 grandkids, the grown-up kids were standing behind him, jumping up and down and pulling out all the stops trying to get the little ones to smile.  It was so hilarious that the photographer snapped one of them, too.

[Sigh]..I love my family.  And.as you can imagine, I can hardly wait for next summer!

Now head on over to Kelly's for more 7QT fun.