Last week our oldest graduated from 8th grade--a rather extravagant affair considering most of her class is going to go on to high school, college, and maybe post-grad educations. If this is the the jumping off point, I wonder how elaborate it will get in 4, 8 and 12 years? Hot air balloons? Horse-drawn carriages? A 30-man Pipe Band and parade?
We spent the weekend—Flag Day—in the lovely little town
of Fairfield. When I say “little”, I’m
talking four blocks long and three blocks wide.
Little. It’s an annual event that
involves a parade, a fly-by from the local AFB, and lots of candy thrown from
the floats! Yes, it’s really a small
town when there is still candy involved!
Unfortunately, it was raining sideways, windy and cold, and my kids
decided they were done with the parade business after just 10-15 minutes. This picture pretty much sums it up. Many of the floats were not rain-friendly, so
they had to cancel several of them. The
parade was significantly shorter this year…sadly. L The funny
bit of the parade was the announcer, who was sitting under a pop-up across the
street from where we were standing (and where my MIL’s car was parked, and
where my kids crawled in to stay warm and dry).
He let us know what each float was, who was in the cars (mostly
conservative politicians, oddly enough), the year and model of each classic
car, and some funny commentary. They
started with the Star Spangled Banner, where he sung the wrong words, and later
sang, “God Bless America”, and he goofed those words up, too. He was funny and charming and really made it
worth standing in the rain!
We went back to the hotel and the kids spent about three hours playing in the pool. They were the only ones in there, along with their cousin, Rory, until the very end when a middle-aged man settled into the hot tub, and just as they were leaving, another family of boys came in. It was a perfect afternoon.
Sunday was the big paternal family reunion. I saw a few familiar faces, and a bunch of
strangers that I had pleasant conversations with. The MC for the day was a lady named Pat who,
for all her organizational skills and efforts, ended up being a little short
with people when they wanted to chat and she wanted them to sit down and listen
to another family member sing karaoke. My
DH and I, along with his cousin, Joe, put our heads together and were
brainstorming ways to make the event more fun next time. The food was good, although I think it might
have run smoother as a buffet instead of a served lunch. Also, the should have done group photographs
earlier, like just before the meal, instead of at the end when half the people
had left. They had, rather at the last
minute, put together a family cookbook and family tree book, but only had 25
copies due to printing costs—they could have put them onto CDs instead for a fraction of the cost. I also would have liked to have a collection
of the original photos scanned in from the first settlers to the area in the
1880s, also on CDs.
We got into the car at 3:30 in the afternoon and headed home--what should have been a 4 1/2 hour trip took closer to six with at least six stops on the way. We got home late last night and the kids got a little bit of sleep. Emma needs less sleep, but she’s done with
school for the year already. Ben was probably a little sleep-deprived and
started a new round of antibiotics to combat the new lung exacerbation that he’s
got going on, and Cammie woke up with a tummy ache, and then proceeded to throw
up. Great. Monday for sure.
BUT, it’s guild meeting tonight and Kelly took the day off work (I asked
if he’d be a dear and drive the kids to school in the morning and he said
no. Sigh.), so as soon as he gets back
from the movies, I’ll leave for the meeting. Or as soon as all the kids are home and Emma can watch the younger ones. Gotta go pack up the stuff!
