My three children are widely scattered, one in Beaufort, NC, one in South Bend, Indiana, and one in Kent, England. All three have children of their own, so I am grandmother to eight. They’ve remained friends over the years, but distance means they can’t all get together very often.

With my son in England, we’ve generally alternated years for traveling to visit during the summer. Last year, my son suggested that for his family’s turn to come over here, we do something that would allow his children to meet and get to know their cousins, who they’d last seen almost four years ago.

I rented a large cabin (not as rustic as that sounds) in Black Mountain for the first week in August.  Joe and Steph with Freya and James flew over from England, Liz joined us from Beaufort, and Sarah, her husband, and her four boys drove down from Indiana to meet us there.

We had a fabulous week. Despite the threat of rain, it held off enough most days that we were able to get in the activities we wanted to do. The same for the sickness that threatened. Even the flat tire on the rental car (yes, again!) failed to slow us down much. (And I will definitely be renewing that Triple-A membership!)

We took the children gem mining at Emerald Village and they had a blast.  We visited the farm where my husband grew up for a day. When they heard we were coming, many of the extended McCullough family made the effort to join us there (and brought tons of food!) We had a few other assorted side trips that various people took to Asheville, the town of Black Mountain, some local hiking trails, and we finished it off with a trip to Catawba Falls. The Falls are divided into lower and upper falls. Reaching the upper falls meant climbing around 500 steps, so some of us were content with viewing the falls from the bottom.

The week went way too fast. I felt like I barely had any time at all with some of the family. Due to the imminent start of school the following week, Sarah and her family had to head back to South Bend and Liz needed to get back to work.

We still had some time with Joe and his family before they returned to England, but we’d already made some wonderful memories with the whole family.

My one regret is I never got a group picture of all of us, though I did get one (at a distance) of all of the children.

But when we got home we did a few more side trips with Joe and his family, visiting the Greensboro Batting Center so everyone could try out the batting cages, Common Grounds — the local coffee shop, and Urban Air, an extensive indoor play spot. More on that later.

It was tough saying goodbye to everyone, but great memories remain.