The leaves are falling and going from shades of green to shades of red, orange, and yellow. It’s finally fall but more specifically, it’s finally November. This is one of the main times of the year that I visit all of my family, including family out-of-state. Just the thought of my hometown excites the thoughts of all of the warm welcomings and the adrenaline rushes from playing hide-and-go seek with my cousins. Thinking back on it now, one of the main things I remember about arriving to my Grandma’s house is the cracking of her gravel driveway, and the site of all the cars in the driveway is another thing I remember too.

I always loved to see everyone outside waiting with anticipation to see “the girls” and to be the first ones to hug us. The first people to give my sisters and I hugs are always my grandma and then my grandpa. Then after all the hugs and kisses we finally exscaped from all the adults. That’s when my cousins, my sisters, and I would go play outside while the men of the family either play black jack or gather wood for the bond fire, while the women of the family either help in the kitchen, teach the men a lesson in playing black jack, or watch my younger cousins in the play room.
I think that my cousins and my sisters would agree that our favorite games to
play outside were hide-and-go seek, freeze tag, play like we were characters from movies, or go adventuring into the woods behind my grandparent’s house.

Well, there are many great memories that we almost always mention when we visit each other. But there is this one specific memory that we can never get over. It starts at a family reunion, it' my cousins, my sisters, and I we’re sick of all the old games we played so we tried to think up a new game. Until one of my cousins, Charles, saw the little car and jeep that’s when his imagination ran wild. It was boys against girls, well the oldest boys and girls anyways, and we called it “smash them up derby.”
The oldest cousins pushed the car while my cousin, Corrisa, my sisters, Tasha and Taylor, and I drove the car. We set up the derby in the front yard so there would be more room, not to mention the adults really didn’t see us and that there was mud. Every time my cousins started to push the cars we’d all start to scream with laughter, feeling the butterflies and the cold breeze hitting our face were a few of the main feelings. The feelings all together and the love of family near, you really couldn’t ask for anything more. But after a while the adults started to come outside and when they seen us muddy, we knew that trouble was coming our way.
I’ll never forget all of the baths that we had that night, but even if we did get in trouble I think it was worth it. That was one of the greatest memories of the my family’s reunion and I learned my lesson, you should never trust a 10 year old with a muddy front yard and a wild imagination.