Tuesday, August 12, 2008

good times

School starts one week from today. As much as I can’t believe our summer break is over, I’m ready for it to be over. So are the noisy boys. We’ve had a blast, to be sure, but at this point, I think we’re all craving the structure of the school routine.

Especially after spending over twenty hours together in the minivan last week. For the record, twenty hours is a lot of together.

We drove to Minnesota and back for my family reunion, stopping in the Dells on the way to break up the trip. Overall, the kids did great. The trip home got dicey after about eight hours on the road…but we were only a few hours from home so we pushed through with the help of a bag of tootsie roll pops and a box of sparkle bandaids.

It was so good to be with my family, just laughing and hanging out. We rented a big dorm at this camp where we all stayed. The noisy boys loved swimming in the lake, going out on the paddleboats with their Grandpa, and jumping off the back of a pontoon boat for a swim. Baby b. loved all the attention that comes your way when you’re two and cute, and throwing rocks off the dock.

This side of the family only gets together every other year, so we missed the last reunion. (Baby b. was just a few weeks old then.) It was good to reconnect, especially with my Grandpa, who just celebrated his 88th birthday.

And I have two new favorite games: Ticket to Ride and Bananagrams.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sounds like a really great time! (minus some hours in the minivan) :)

That Ticket to Ride game saved our Thanksgiving holiday with family one year. We were all (roughly 35 of us) snowbound in a cabin in the middle of nowhere. I had never seen that game before, but it was a godsend! :)

ChosenRebel said...

Welcome home.

Marmot Mom said...

Best new group game we learned this summer is Quelf. It's as weird as it sounds--hilarious! Welcome back.

Anonymous said...

I've felt guilty for feeling it, but I'm sort of ready for school to start, too. It will be Julia's first year in pre-school (every day, in the a.m.). We're craving the structure and I'm looking forward to some exclusive Lucy time. Julia is looking forward to some mommy-free time. I know this because she can't stop singing that song from Hair Spray, "Don't! Stop! No! Please! Mama I'm a big girl now!" She even points at me when she sings.

Llama Momma said...

Stacey -- I was amazed by how much I loved Ticket to Ride. (Once I actually figured it out...it took me longer than I'll ever admit to...)

ChosenRebel -- thanks. :-)

Marmot Mom -- I'll have to check that one out. I love games.

Leslie -- NO GUILT, my friend. No guilt! ;-)

Anonymous said...

From a burly man's perspective, I have to echo the "Ticket to Ride" plug. Like Risk it is a geo-based strategy game. Unlike Risk, gameplay doesn't eliminate players until only one person is left standing.

Since the game metaphor is transportation routing, you can still get in each other's way, but it's much easier to be friends after the game than with the martial metaphor of total world domination that Risk uses. (For maximum impact, please read "total world domination" with a James Earl Jones voice.)

llama papa