Kids on the Course

When my family gets together we try to have a big golf tournament, and its kind of a big deal. No body wants to stay home and not play (ahem...babysit everyone else's kids) so we ALL go and we ALL play and ALL the kids come along.

This has gotten to be one of my favorite bits about our Family Tournaments. Golf pictures start to all look the same after a while...well, lets be honest, they are very similar, but looking through the pictures of our family after the years of playing you see more than golf.  It has become a way to document our family, when we first began my younger brother was still in high school, since then we have added Coast Guard stickers to the golf carts, spouses to the partner draw, better clothing for the camera and the kids!

The older boys, Luke and Tre, christened our tournament in car seats and now they are right along side of us, not in the draw but learning the game of golf, and in turn, learning what it means to be part of the family.  It means not only being able to be quiet but enjoying that quiet, it means never ever talking in someone's back swing, waiting for the group in front of you to finish putting, allowing other groups to play through, the cart is not a toy, grown ups have to follow the rules too, sometimes you have to pull the weight of the score, not to get mad at yourself when you are the one who needs pulling along, praising someone's shot even though it means they are now beating you, taking pictures of your opponent with their birdie, and that the fun is in being together.
One day they'll be in the partner draw, how cool is that?!

I get different reactions when I tell people we had 5 kids ages 6 through 3 on the golf course...

admit it, this is what you are imagining

And admittedly there are lots of snacks and its a learning process but really, here is just a little idea of what it looks like:

My dad with Joel and Tre

Addy and Joel

Family picture:
Cody, Courtney and Olivia

Joel keeping score

Tre in the back of the cart

Mark and Mark

Aaron and Luke

Joel and Tre picking up their putts

Grandma and Addy

Cody and Olivia at the tee box

getting a snack at the clubhouse

Olivia on the green with Stacy and Cody high fiving

There are TONS more, this may not even be the best of them. What family traditions do you have?