I come from a pretty large family (I'm the youngest of seven children) and half of us live around this general area. But the rest of my siblings are spread out across the country and even into Germany. So whenever one of the "far-away" ones comes home to visit my mom, the rest of us gather up, prepare some food, and sit around and gab, while the nieces and nephews play (although they are growing up so much that "play" isn't always the right description).
That's how this past weekend went. One of my brothers and family traveled from Virginia to visit my mom on the family farm. My mother has been talking about selling the farm and moving into something smaller and more appropriate for her age and abilities and my brother wanted to make sure that his kids got to spend some time exploring and creating memories.
There are usually some interesting moments when family gathers together, and I usually have some sort of cynical or sarcastic comment to make about it. But really, this weekend went quite smoothly.
Sunday was our largest gathering -- only two of my siblings and their families were absent. My mom had requested that we prepare a short biography of the highlights of our lives that we could share with each other. Of course we all moaned and groaned about it. And I don't think many of us actually wrote anything down, but once we started sharing memories of our childhood and experiences growing up, it was hard to shut us up. I even learned a few things about my older brothers (and how mischevious they were)!
Some other highlights of the weekend were: going to the cemetary where my dad was buried, taking group photos, going to the local reservoir where we used to go as a family to waterski, etc, bowling (I beat 3 of my brother's scores!), and avoiding my mom's cooking (she's never really been the best cook - lol).
My 3-day weekend was packed, but I really had a great time, and when I returned to work on Tuesday I realized I hadn't thought about work all weekend! Now that's a rarity!! And boy was it refreshing.
This photo above is of the small country town I grew up in. I took the photo from the cemetary up on the hill, where my dad is buried.
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