A good bit of our adventures throughout the year tend to fall into two categories – events my husband has to attend for work that Edie and I tag along to or things we do with our dear friends the Smileys. Occasionally, the two merge, like this past weekend’s adventures – Pat’s employer, James River Association, hosted an oyster roast down in Lynchburg at Kegney Brothers featuring Will’s Christchurch School oysters.

The scene

UNO!

The grub – trout, kale, oysters, potatoes. YUM.

Sunset over the James.

Smiley men at work.

OYSTERS!

It was a full family affair, with Will’s dad Knight helping to shuck oysters as we watched the sun go down over the river behind us on the patio at Kegney Brothers.  Edie pulled out a deck of UNO cards to keep the kids entertained (once again proving she is the most responsible and on the ball member of our family) while we mingled with JRA employees and Lynchburg friends, feasting on oysters, trout and more.  It was a rather lovely way to spend a late November Saturday afternoon/early evening.

We spent the night with the Smileys at Knight and Dorie’s (thank you Senior Smileys!). The next morning, the kids were up and out wandering about before getting properly dressed. (Nothing new there though is there?) There were some attempts to capture a holiday card type photo of the children who were not entirely cooperative, leading to Mollie and I wondering if it would be weird to have each other’s children on our holiday greetings this year since they only posed nicely when assembled together like one big happy family. Considering a good portion of my readership are Will & Mollie’s family and friends, I’m sure no one would blink at eye at a combined photo of the kids, would you?  I sort of laughed it off until I started sorting through my photos this morning, attempting to take advantage of some of the online pre-holiday deals to get them printed and realized most of the really great photos I have of Edie girl are either with the Smileys or Sophia.  Which is my way of saying if I do get around to putting out a card this year, there’s a very good chance we may have kids on there that aren’t actually ours, but spend enough time with us that we consider them at least partially ours. That’s not too weird, is it?