Saturday, June 17, 2006

Family Weekend

Last weekend we, our kids, and their kids, plus a few extras, and a few cousins, rented a place for a couple of days. It is next to a small lake, with a dock, a good place for the kids to swim, a covered picnic area, and plenty of air conditioned space for the heat of the day.

Imagine about 20 people spending a long weekend together, with no squabbling, no accidents, and no problems--no, no, that's not us--well, the squabbles were minor, the accidents involved skinned knees and splinters in toes, and one of the worst problems was that we were responsible for the biscuits for Sunday breakfast, and we forgot.

Other than that, what a fun time. Great food, time to rock and visit at leisure, board games, water guns, a huge round tube which did duty as a sunning spot for Mimi and the mommys, a diving platform for the little'ns, and a whirlpool/hurricane/vortex/ship rocking in a big storm.

Emma the golden retriever swam until she was puffing like a steam engine and had to be taken to the steps so she could catch her breath. Frankie the pom and Gizmo the cat had words at length. Several times. Poor Twitter cat hid in the corner of the couch, and tried to pretend he was invisible.

We ate Daddy Jack's watermelon right out of the rind, with no utensils, and washed the dripping juice off in the lake. He also brought us fresh tomatoes right off the vine. We ate barbecue, ham, turkey, sandwiches, bacon and eggs and gravy. We also consumed a chocolate cake, about 6 batches of cookies (snickerdoodles, oatmeal chocolate chip, peanut butter with kisses in the center), chips, cokes, sandwiches, and gallons of water.

We got a little sunburned, stayed up too late, took naps, and kissed and hugged the grandbabies. And each other.

We talked. We laughed. We prayed.

None of us wanted to leave.

And we can't wait to do it again.