Relative-ly Speaking

Today was an interesting day. But before we talk about today, we have to back up and talk about yesterday! Yesterday we got up early and drove to Pennsylvania, for the annual reunion of Bob's family. We started going to these about 3 years ago, and we have had a lot of fun getting to know these distantly-related cousins, once, twice, or how-ever many times removed. Bob's dad is one of 6 siblings, the only one still alive, and all of his siblings had prolific families, so there are a lot of people at these things. Each year there are people there that we have never met, and I can never keep their relationship to Bob straight. I need someone to make a huge family tree with everyone on it, but that seems unlikely to happen, unfortunately. This year it was at Bob's "Aunt" Peggy's house (really a cousin, but a lot older). She has a lovely in-ground pool,a nd the fact that it was raining off and on during the day did not keep the kids from enjoying the swimming! The water was heated to about 95 degress, so it was definitely warmer in there than outside, which was a cool mid-70's!.

It was the first time for most of Bob's immediate family to see Anna, not to mention all these other distant relatives, and she was her usual happy self, charming everyone with her big smiles. I hardly had to hold her except for nursing! I brought the bouncer seat, but, silly me, I needed it not a bit.

Today we went to Bob's parents' house for a few minutes before heading over to a big state park for the 16th birthday party of Bob's niece Sara. The party started at 1:00, and we knew things could get tricky because we needed to leave around 2:00. Nathan was going to Camp Caleb at White Sulphur Springs (more on that later), and we had to drop him off by 4:00 (the letter we got gave stern instructions about there being no late arrivals, and this IS a camp for Christian military kids, so . . .). Fun was had at the playground, on a hiking trail down to a lake, and on a big slide, and then we grabbed a quick bite to eat. So far so good. Two o'clock came quickly, and I started to get everyone ready to go. Bob's brother Dennis, who we don't get to see that often, was there, and right around 2:00, his sister Jane came in also. Since his sisters Ann and Rose were already there, as was his brother Paul (Sara's father), this meant that this was one of the very few occasions that all the siblings were at the same place (I can think of only one other time in our 13 years of marriage). I pushed for some pictures to be taken, which did happen, although at a snail's pace! It was a historic time though! Then I started hustling everyone out to the car so we could leave. But unfortunately it wouldn't be a visit without some sort of hysteria to end things up with, and this time Jane decided that she had to give presents to Nathan and Jonathan for their birthdays. We had seen her all day yesterday as well, so there were other opportunities. By this time it was close to 2:30, and we knew we had to leave or we would not have a chance at making the time for Nathan. That's when things got really ugly so quickly I'm not even sure exactly how it happened. Jane started saying that we DID have time for these presents and dragging the boys off to her car, Bob told them to get into our car, she started cussing, well, let's just say it was a very awkward situation amde worse by the fact that we really did need to go, and even if we had had all day, we would not have been able to fit the presents in the van. Sigh. They were 3 really big boxes, but of course, we are toting around all Nathan's camp stuff, plus our suitcase, pack-n-play, bouncer seat, etc. We had no extra room! Augggh! I hate confrontation! As we drove off, leaving a mass of people milling around, I told Bob my ears were burning since I knew we were being roundly cursed. The thing was, we had told everyone several times about how we had to leave around 2:00. We didn't just spring that on them! Big sigh. We'll have to see how it all sorts out. And so another good visit ends with a bang. Exciting.

Just to wrap things up, we were only 5 minutes late to drop off Nathan, praise the Lord, and it wasn't a big deal. The whole dropping-off thing was kind of hectic and chaotic, since Anna was hollering to be fed, everyone needed to go potty, and Jonathan had just had an accident (the reason we were 5 minutes late, LOL). I never even really got to say goodbye! But I put pictures in his Bible of all of us, and I put little notes in his pocket (if he finds them, or even changes clothes, LOL), so that makes me feel better. He has been so incredibly excited about going, so off he went without even a backwards glance! I'll blog more tomorrow on exactly what he'll be doing, etc. But for now, I am pooped, and I still need to nurse Anna once more. We're pretty much all fried, so hopefully we'll all sleep well. Well, maybe not Jonathan. You see, I picked this week to give up his binky, since Caleb could sleep in Nathan's bed with Luke, and there would be no one else in Jonathan's room to be disturbed by him if he has a hard time of it! And he has hard a bit of a hard time going off to sleep. I'm hoping that he will just be SO tired however, that he will be able to do it with no problems. I'll report on our night tomorrow too!