4th of July

After celebrating my grandmother's 80th, most of the 96 family members drove home (most live in the Houston metroplex) and the rest of the Morby crew stayed for the holiday weekend. It's been a long time since all 25 of us have been in Galveston together. We only have a 3 bedroom house in Pirates Beach, so some of us rented a house off 37th street and the Seawall. Such a great location, a large house, and only 2 blocks from the beach on the Seawall. though we only slept there, it was nice to have 10 people to a room back at our beachhouse.

The morning of the 4th we walked to the Seawall and my dad and Justin tried out the water. My lens was fogging up from coming out of the AC, but it still made for a cool photo.

Ironically, my grandparents and all the younger cousins and spouses were the only ones that stayed at the beachhouse. The night prior some had decorated the new golfcart to participate in the neighborhood parade. I've never really been to it much less participated in it. Let's just say we didn't realize how competitive it was. The rest of our family was on the receiving end of the parade, so cousin Ginger took this photo of me taking a photo of them.

My dad brought his stash of Snicker bars from his Starburst tournament (the big kind), and I've never seen grown adults fight for a candy bar like they did on that day. "Big candy bars!" was heard after we would throw our treats out. You would see dogs spray painted in wagons, and all sorts of riding devices.

Lots of people had a theme, like pirates or "We've been Iked". This one was our fave from the movie Up. See Kevin on top? And the crew inside was dressed like the characters on the show.

I kid you not by saying that there were hundreds of golfcarts present when we drove up. Next year game on from the Morby crew.

Hilary & Kaki did a great job of making ours festive, but we had no idea of the league we were messing with.

Here's the rest of the clan waiting for our cart at the end of the parade.

Then it was off to the beach to enjoy the beautiful weather. Justin and Derek rode the boogey board all morning long catching waves.

And then Justin milked his way around anyone in the water. I think everyone eventually played with him out in the water. Here's cousin Hilary and Joannie.

There were lots of hermit crabs, and Joannie, our animal lover, was showing Justin what they looked like. She even wanted to help one crab get into a bigger shell - he looked cramped, after all.

My dad & Justin. For as long as I can remember my dad and mom would wear these sunglass holders so that the waves wouldn't wash away their glasses.

And everyone played "aggie golf" as we liked to call it.

I found out once I got there that my mom had included in one of her planning emails that we were to wear red, white, and blue for a big family photo on Saturday. I think the month of June into July I truthfully spaced out on most of my emails. I was bummed that I wore my nice red shirt to the reunion, which meant it was all smelly. So I had to wear a blue shirt instead. Those who know me know that I don't love wearing blue. We never get ready at the beach, so it was interesting to having a ton of ladies use hairdryers and such all in a short time frame. I used the CHI on my mom's hair, and my aunt Joannie got the same treatment from her daughter, Hilary. Even Amy got her hair straightened.

Amy & Grandma were singing a hymn together.

Justin and I swinging in the new hammock.

Justin fell asleep on the way back form the beach earlier that afternoon. We threw him in the shower to get the sand off but didn't use soap. So a long nap and sunscreen mixed with sweat later produced a fine mix of hair. Here is a cheese face with Aunt Elise.

And the family photo. It was Ginger's idea for this pose, all of us crowded on a picnic table. The ladies on the second to last row had to sit on their knees. My son was being uncharacteristically camera shy, so I had to hit the timer on my tripod, run and get on my knees, and hold squirm boy up for the photo. This is the best on we had. And after all that stressing it didn't even matter what shirt I wore since you can't even see what I am wearing!

Then we took some family photos. Justin changed tunes and immediately started smiling once he decided to be a part of the Greg Morby bunch. Here they are as the kids are all giving us a hard time for the photo. Hey little man on the picnic table!

Some of the guys had played golf and had just gotten back right before photos. Derek got sick on the course, some type of cold/flu that stuck around for a week until it went on to a sinus infection. So kudos to Derek for giving us a smile even though he didn't feel good at all. In fact he went back to Houston an hour later to go get a good night's rest, only to find out that the electricity in our neighborhood was out for a few hours. Not his night.

Amy with a clothes pin to hide any unwarranted body parts flying out of the dress. You've got to hand it to her for her modesty.

Then Grandpa took out some of the kids with Justin lodge in as well. They said he had a blast. So did mommy in her peacefulness without him.

Then we headed back to the rental house where 2 streets up at the Seawall the huge annual fireworks show for Galveston was taking place at 9pm. Justin was so excited about the fireworks, that somehow I never took the time to explain what they really were!? So as we stood under the war of the world, he was frightened by the whole thing. So my mom took him home while Aaron, Elise, my dad, and I felt the whole thing. I'm not kidding - the ground shook we were so close.

I took my tripod to take some delayed photos, but we were so close that it wasn't dark at all. So I just took them on automatic.

I could barely get the whole thing in my camera since it was so close.

You've gotta love those fireworks.

The big finale.

So thankful for our freedom, or what's left of it these days.