July 3, 2007
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We’re home! Back from the Family Reunion…..
After being gone for almost 11 days, it was good to get home this morning. I have had my fill for a while of kids running up and down stairs, doors banging, the sweet sound of refrigerator doors opening and closing constantly as a dozen different kids look for hidden treasures of food and other assorted events that go on during these things. It’s the sweet sound of…silence
We came home to a garden totally overgrown with weeds. They must have been hiding under the watermelon and cantaloupe leaves for us to leave and then they had a party. It will take me days to clean them all out. Our monster tomato bush looked awful. It was a big water hog and there wasn’t enough rain to whet it’s appetite so the outer, smaller branches suffered. There were at least a dozen huge tomatoes perfectly ripe so we had fresh ripe tomato slices on our sandwiches for lunch. I will have a wonderful tomato and cucumber salad with dinner later. I have it all sitting in the Italian dressing along with sliced onions right now so it should be perfect in a couple of hours.
As for the reunion itself……it was kind of a bust this year since so many had unexpected events that befell them plus we found out that the cousin in charge of letting everyone know the date, time and place of the event *forgot*. Actually, I assume that she thought that the person whose home we were using would take that over but she was the one with all the email addresses and snail mail addresses. She never sent them. I haven’t spoken to her yet because she and her husband had to attend a funeral in St. Louis. Another cousin is being treated for breast cancer. She had hoped to attend but got pneumonia and spent 8 days in the hospital and only got out a few days before the reunion. She is due to begin another round of chemotherapy as we speak so she had to stay home to rest up for that. It ended up just me, my daughter, The Beast and all my siblings plus a variety of nieces, nephews, friends, etc. We are our own entertainment when we get a chance to be together so we enjoyed ourselves anyway. There certainly was enough food to feed an army but none of it went to waste because the next day we had a double graduation party that had a minimum of 16 teenagers (confirmed) attending plus parents and friends of the family.
I had never seen this popular *beanbag* game that everyone played before this weekend. It’s not something big in the South apparantly. I am not sure just how many of the targets were in use but I saw three and I think two more were on the front lawn. Most everyone was out in the backyard playing on teams of two. Later in the day, it became a challenge game with a monetary prize. Now THAT was spirited but was won by two 13 year old boys to the chagrin of the adults participating. I thought it was funny but I was a minority.
My husband spent our time in Chicago at his brothers while I stayed, along with the sister we picked up in Indiana and my daughter, at the sister-in-law’s home. I found out my daughter has not outgrown the talking in her sleep that she did when she was young. It was kind of funny since so much of what she was saying had to do with eating. She not only ate while she was awake but apparantly ate in her dreams too.
A lot more went on but I am going to save it for tomorrow since I am trying to get everything unpacked, washed and put away today while I have the energy and ambition.
I hope everyone has a wonderful 4th of July and, if you have fireworks, please be careful.
Have a great day.
