Labor Day Weekend

This was weekend all about family. We started with a visit to my grandmother to wish her a happy 98th birthday. Although she struggles to hear her brain is sharp. Grandma completes several word puzzles each day.

The next stop was my mother-in-law's house where we got to see Forrest's sister, Jeweli, and her two youngest boys. We hadn't seen them since they moved to New Mexico three years ago. Forrest's family is a yours, mine, and ours family. He grew up with three half siblings-Jeweli and Art from his father's first marriage and Debbie from his mother's first marriage. We attended a barbecue at the home of Art and Jeweli's half sister, Kim, and her family. Noah and Alyssa found that they had a lot in common with Kim's kids. Forrest and I introduced Art to the son he hasn't seen in two decades, Jason, and his wife, Alecia. We were invited to Jason's wedding by his mother whom we met at a school reunion. Forrest offered to fill Jason in on the other side of his family so we've had them to our house for dinner and communicated by email. We were afraid that the introduction might be awkward, but eventually they started talking. Art and Jason even took on Noah and some of the other cousins in a 3 on 3 basketball game. I hope this isn't too confusing. I have trouble keeping all of the players straight myself without a scorecard.

The final day of our trip we celebrated several fall birthdays in Forrest's family at his mom's house on the lake. Then we stopped by my cousin's house to visit with her family on our way home. My cousin's oldest girl and Alyssa are very close. We've always taken photos of the kids lined up by age. In this way Alyssa is the second oldest. This time we also decided to line the kids up by height. That puts my kids at the end and as you can see Alyssa will soon be last as her brother is catching up with her.

Tomorrow night is back to school night. I have mixed feelings about the start of the school year each summer. I'm sad to see my carefree days disappear, but excited at the prospect of meeting new children and families. My kids are happy with the schedules they received and are anxious to see their friends, but they're not ready to do school work yet. Me neither.