Wednesday, December 10, 2014

July 4, 2014 - LaBar Family Reunion - Day 1

Our first full day together was the 4th of July. We spent the day swimming at our hotel and at the Freedom Festival at Patriot Park in Pigeon Forge. The festival has all sorts of wonderful and free activities for the kids as well as live music throughout the day. It was also within walking distance of our hotel which was super nice. All in all, I think our group had a great day celebrating our nation's independence. :)
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Before heading to the Freedom Festival, we decided to pose the great-grandkids on the stairs for a photo opportunity. I believe it's a relatively decent picture given that it's of eleven children between the ages of 1 and 9. :) We have a couple of pictures of the grandkids posed in a similar fashion that date back about 20 years... I should see if anyone has made a digital copy so we can compare the generations. :)
 Don't be fooled by the deceptively sweet picture above, here are the REAL LaBar cousins...
 Does this cousinly love remind anyone else of little LaBar boys of years gone by??? 
 

 We took a walk along the river edge and Uncle Rich found a tiny crawfish for the kids. 
 Grand-Dad and Grammy with two happy little girls with very large snow cones! :)
 McKinley approved of the snow cones as well. :)

 I believe Holden thought they were alright too. Love those blue lips/face! :)
 The David LaBars off to enjoy the festival together
Such a beautiful picture of Aunt Faye and Amber!
 I thought this was such a sweet picture of my cousin Amber and her family
 One of the activities was free face painting and another was balloon art. The girls loved both! :)
 One of our best-friends, who moved to Tennessee this summer, was able to join us for the day. Love these sweet, beautiful faces! :)
 After face painting the girls decided to give the giant inflatable balls a try
 The girls and cousins tried out the bungee trampolines

 Our hotel was situated absolutely perfectly for watching fireworks. It's so nice because the kids can get in pjs and play in the rooms while we wait for the shows (we could see both Dollywood's and Pigeon Forge's 4th of July displays) to begin. When the displays are over there's no traffic to deal with so it is pretty easy and great! And speaking of which, here is a picture of a cute little boy already for bed and fireworks. 
 While we were together we had a couple of family celebrations. One was my cousin Darin's wife, Elise's, birthday. Hope she enjoyed the surprise! With all the noise makers it was certainly a loud one and possibly not too much of a surprise... lol :)
 It was also Grammy and Grand-Dad's 38th wedding anniversary so we had a special cookie made for them (rest assured there was no sugar shortage during this reunion).

We had a wonderful day celebrating the 4th of July together with all our LaBar relations as well as some special friends. This was our own family's third year to celebrate the 4th in Pigeon Forge so I believe it has officially become a family tradition. That said, I believe it's safe to say if anyone would like to join us you know where we'll be July 4, 2015! :)
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Also, before I forget... most of the LaBar pictures I'll be posting are mine, but I want to give credit to Grand-Dad, Rich and Stacy since I am, and will be using, some of the photos they took during our time together. Thanks to everyone for sharing all the fabulous pictures and memories!

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