Outings and Shenanigans

Continuing our discussion of Thanksgiving traditions, one of our favorite traditions has centered around the cousins getting together.  They've been enjoying each other's company since they were babies and when they get together, mischief and fun isn't far behind.

Over the years, we've had impromptu fashion shows put on by the kids.

We've had sing-a-longs interrupted by the occasional OUTSTANDING dance moves.

We've gone on outings over the holiday weekend.  This particular outing has a little story attached to it.  My brother had been raving about the hamburgers at a place called the Black Diamond Bar and Grille.  He kept going on and on about how they were HUGE and the best he'd ever had. So we all piled in the van and headed out one cold morning for a long drive up into the mountains to have those hamburgers for lunch.  After all that driving, we got there only to find out that they were closed that day.  Oh, man....we sure didn't let my brother forget about that!  However, we continued on and came to this wonderful pancake restaurant that had real maple syrup with their flapjacks and after the meal, you could sit outside on their swings or walk little nature trails through the woods.  It turned into a lovely outing after all.

We've enjoyed "talent shows" put on by the cousins.  They've really been a hoot.

Have you heard of a group called the "Tijuana Brass?"  Well, sometimes we adults have joined in the fun, hence the "Michigander Brass."

And the kids have kept us entertained while we've waited for the turkey to finish cooking.

Sadly, the cousins are scattered around the country now with job and family commitments that make it difficult to get them all together at one time.   These days we are lucky to have one or two of  them joining us for Thanksgiving.  But regardless, we still have fun together as a family.  Wherever YOU are, we hope you have some fun planned, too, this holiday weekend with family or friends.

Smile for the Birdie!

Ah, Thanksgiving!  That time of year when families travel from near and far to get together to eat too much, shop too much, act like fools, and make wonderful memories.

 In our family, my brother's family and our family have taken turns for years getting together to spend the long weekend together.  We've had certain "traditions" that we've followed over the Thanksgiving holiday which I'll share with you in the next few posts but one of the most sacrosanct has been posing for family pictures.

At some point in the weekend, we all get into our festive outfits and gather in one central location, set up the cameras on the tripods, and then the fun begins.

We take many different combinations of pictures.....photos of each family, photos of just the kids, photos of the adult siblings, and photos of the siblings with our mom.

These photo sessions can drag on  and on, sometimes erupting into gales of laughter and other times deteriorating into testiness.

The one thing that they all have in common, though, is that they are snapshots of times in our lives that will never come again.  Despite the dorkiness of them or their perfection, they will always remind us of the special joy we have shared as family.

They are treasures that I enjoy looking at every year.

Perhaps my all-time favorite is this picture that was taken the Thanksgiving immediately after I had finished my 6 months of chemotherapy after a diagnosis of breast cancer.  The joy reflected on our faces is so evident.  We were a family united together, alive,  and life was good.  It still is!  May you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving this week (or have HAD one - for my Canadian friends).

Revin' It Up!

My brother just purchased an ATV for the hunting land he has up north.  I guess he's had a long-time dream of owning one of these and finally he has one.  So this weekend, he decided that we all were going to take a turn learning how to drive it.

First up was my nephew, John.  He got the 5-second instruction on the controls and off he went.  Handled it just like a pro, too.  I was impressed.  Oh, oh....if he was slowing down then it meant that I was next up.

I headed off around to the front yard, just skirting the drain pipe and the flag pole, around to the other side of the front yard and then headed back off to the back yard.

By my second circuit around the backyard, I was whizzing and having a ball.  Whee!  I have to admit that it was a lot of fun.

It was the Commander's turn next and he took the "responsible" approach, driving sensibly and responsibly but even so, I could tell that he was enjoying himself, too.

My sister-in-law wasn't going to take a turn but we convinced her to have a go at it and off she went after a quick orientation by my brother.

She was a natural at it.  Last up was my brother who went to town, even losing his hat on one turn but by then my fingers were so frozen that I couldn't snap any more pictures even if I'd wanted to (sorry, John!).

And before the ATV was even back in the garage, most of us were back inside the house waiting for the kettle to heat up so we could get some hot tea into us and warm up.  It's always good times when our families get together.  It's a chance to laugh, act like kids again, and make more memories. 

The Porterfields Meet the Byrnes - Pre-wedding

Just over a week ago we flew down to Texas for our son's wedding. We headed down early so that we could have a few days to meet Laura's parents and relatives and help out with the wedding preparations.


I have to admit that I was a little nervous as we packed our bags. I had hoped to lose 40 pounds prior to our departure and the wedding to bolster my self-confidence (at heart I'm pretty shy) and to NOT be forever immortalized in the wedding pictures as the "overweight one." What was I thinking? Somehow I managed to forget the fact that we had Thanksgiving and the Christmas season between the engagement and the wedding....always a major "chow-down" challenge for me PLUS I tend to eat when I'm nervous. OK, I tend to eat when I'm happy, too, or sad or worried or glad or....well, you get the point. Just about the only time I don't have a problem with wanting to eat is when I have a case of the stomach flu.

In any case, George and I, in all my chubby glory, flew on down to Houston and stepped off the plane into glorious warmth. We weren't in Kansas anymore, Toto. This was Texas and it didn't feel like winter at all. This was a good start to a happy occasion.

We picked up our rental car and headed over to meet Laura's family. We'd talked to them before on Skype but this would be our first face-to-face meeting. I hoped we would do Jason proud and not embarrass him before his future in-laws. And I hoped we would like Laura's parents. I really shouldn't have worried. After all, we had met Laura and quickly discovered why Jason was head-over-heels in love with her. She was delightful. She had obviously been raised in a loving, nurturing home. The door opened and we were welcomed with open arms. In quick succession we met Laura's parents, her sisters, an aunt and uncle and three cousins, her maternal grandmother, her paternal grandparents, a sister's boyfriend, and one friend from Canada. During the course of the evening, several things became readily apparent.


One, this was an affectionate family. They liked to hug on each other. This was so unlike our backgrounds. I don't think George's family ever showed emotion around each other when he was growing up. In my family, I don't have any recollections of my mother ever cuddling me. I do remember my father picking me up off his lap around age 5 and setting me down on the floor and saying, "You're getting to be a big girl now. I think you're too big to be sitting on my lap." To this day, I remember how crestfallen that made me feel. So when my children were born, I was really looking forward to giving and receiving hugs from them. Unfortunately, my dear daughter was never much of a cuddler and her mantra as she grew older became "don't touch me." Luckily, our son Jason was the cuddler so I had at least one fellow feeler and hugger in the family. Now here we were surrounded by huggers. I was amazed and happy that Jason was gaining such a family and envious, all at the same time.


Two, this family was an active family. They apparently were very good tennis players. Laura, the cousins, and friends participated in a type of sumo wrestling, for wont of a better description. When I first met Grandma and Grandpa Byrne, they mentioned that they had been able to fly out to Texas early because they didn't have to do their ski patrol duties that day because of the unseasonably warm weather. I didn't think I had heard them correctly. I mean, this was an older couple. They almost could have been old enough to be my parents.


"Did you say 'ski patrol'?" I asked confused.


"Yes, we're on the ski patrol," they responded.


"Ski patrol, as in sking down a mountain?" I continued.


"Right, we've been on the ski patrol for awhile now. We really enjoy it.", they assured me.


Wow, I thought. Later I found out that they sail, have scuba dived, and are a lot peppier than I am. They both had amazing energy during all the wedding preparations and Grandma Byrne plays a mean game of Scrabble. But more on that later.


Three, they had a lot of relatives and a lot of nicknames for each other. I'd return to the house we were staying at in the evenings and work on a little flow chart that I had drawn up in an attempt to figure out who was related to whom, what their names were and what they were actually being called. I was doing pretty good, too until the night before the wedding when a whole group of new relatives arrived with children in tow. Abandoning the flow chart, I drew back to my second line of defense......smiling and waving.


I think it was the second day we were there that someone mentioned how much the ladies in the family enjoyed playing Scrabble. Jason had told them that I had played Scrabble a lot also, so soon I found myself sitting at the table with a Scrabble board in front of me and some very intense players surrounding me. Now let me just say here that over the years I've played a LOT of Scrabble games with my mother. It was always her game of choice. I usually couldn't come up with a good enough excuse to get out of it so we'd play and the game would sometimes drag on for what seemed like hours. In an attempt to speed things up, we developed our own rules, like playing with 9 tiles instead of 7 and letting players take back and reuse a blank tile if they could substitute the actual letter it was representing. But that wasn't the way we were playing Scrabble here. I racked my brain, trying to remember all those "Q" and "Z" words that Mom had on a list in the old Scrabble box. In the meantime Grandma Byrne was taking every Triple Letter spot that I opened up, Mom Byrne was coming up with obscure words that meant who knew what but actually existed and Aunt Pam was circling helpfully and offering to look up words in the dictionary for us.


I flashed back 40 years and heard my brother say, "Yeah, go ahead and look it up in the dictionary but you'll lose a turn."


"No one looks up a word in the dictionary unless their word is challenged and then they lose a turn if it isn't in there," I heard myself telling the ladies. I still lost, big time! But hey, it was fun. I hadn't played Scrabble since macular degeneration had claimed Mom's eyesight and I'd actually missed it.


That night, back in our temporary quarters, my brother called.


"Well, you've met them. So tell me, who's more normal.....them or us?"


I laughed, thinking of my kooky family growing up. "Well, John, I'd say it's definitely them," I replied.


"Oh, darn," he sighed. "See you on Saturday."


"And John," I continued. "Behave yourself when you get here."


"Don't I always?" he laughed and then I was listening to the dial tone.