The Protest, part 1: What I've Been Doing These Past Few Weeks

My last post was on June seventh. This means that 'catching up' is not going to be easy, so let me hit the high points.

Aunt Becky, Uncle Jared, and Cara Grace's visit came and went. It was fantastic, albeit far too short. You've noticed how when out-of-town relatives visit, you see your in-town relatives a lot more often? Yeah. That's kind of a cool side effect.

Funniest/Favorite highlights of the visit?

Dad and Calvin (age four) playing 'may I please have my brains back?' Dad pretended to pull Cal's brain out through his ear, then coached him in the correct way to stick his tongue out, drool, and slur "may I please have my brains back?" Which he continued to do for a solid week.

Cara's spitting llamas. She was sitting on the floor playing with Andrew's legos in our family room. They'd come over for dinner. I was sitting in a chair beside her, leaning over to play with her. I made what I thought was a very cute duck, and proceeded to make the duck 'quack' at her with it. She promptly informed me that it looked more like a llama than a duck. To which I replied "Well, I don't know what a llama says." So she told me, "They don't say nuffin', they 'pit (spit)!"

Standing in the kitchen, cooking side-by-side with Nana, Aunt Becky, and Mama. Peeling potatoes at Nana's kitchen table with Aunt Becky. All (*counts on fingers*) twelve? of us piling into the ten-by-ten family room to play music. Which is what we call it when Daddy and Andrew grab their guitars and Aunt Becky and Papaw grab their ukeleles and the rest of us sing along where we can and we play whatever song from the song book sounds best at the time. We managed a pretty decent He Knows My Name, if I do say so myself.

We got together for the last time Monday night. We did dinner, dessert, and music. Mom and Dad started giving each other the 'it's time to go' looks, then Nana says "Hey, don't we wanna look at pictures? So we all take turns putting our camera SD cards into the wii and we look at pictures. The looks begin again, then Nana produces a humongous watermelon and says "Does anybody want watermelon?" And even though we were all full as ticks, everybody did. And as Nana and I are in the kitchen cleaning up, I looked over at her and said, "We're stretching, aren't we?" We were, of course. Everybody knew it.

They left last Tuesday, the same day Grandma and Pawpaw came back from their vacation in Florida. Tuesday afternoon, Mom and I scooted down to NC to pick up Joy so we could go over to the CPC to volunteer, like we always do. We get there and up to the door and our 'boss' informs us (in a whisper) that she's with a client, and didn't need us that day. So I call daddy, and Joy and me wind up sitting in the kitchen at the office for an hour. Which, seeing as how it was us, was a blast.

And that's pretty much it for June. July is gonna have to be a story for another day. Au revoir!