Saturday was rainy and the temp dropped about 15 degrees just before dark.  Sunday morning, the rain turned to light snow.  The spaghetti sauce was late arriving on Friday night.  (Amy, really?)  The kids were alternately raucous and ear splitting in their joy and impressive in their ever increasing maturity and height.  Noah is now apparently the same height as Effie.  Olivia managed to keep her shirt on this year.  Good progress, Alyson.  And naturally, there was too much food.

In the end it was exactly what we had intended.  The Cooper family spending a few hours together away from home, work and distractions.  This was the 8th installment.  Amy presented a slideshow of the first 7 years.  Very nice indeed.  Thanks, Amy.

The annual family gathering at Dale Hollow began on December 2, 2010, as usual, on the weekend following Thanksgiving weekend.  The first night, there was just me and Valerie, my sisters Cynthia and Sheila, Cynthia’s husband Tanny and my brother Hew.  The next day, the others arrived, my nieces, nephews, their children and their spouses, etc.  We occupied the two “Bigfoot Chalets” which are side by side next to Dale Hollow Lake.

We were saddened that some of our group didn’t make it.  We hope that in the future we’ll all be together again.  For 2011, we expect good things and begin looking forward to next year’s event at DH.  Certainly Valerie and I will be turning a new page next year and appreciate all of the good wishes from the family.