Lovely Weekend

As I suspected Jubilee had a great time at Silverwood.  She drug her feet a little bit early in the day, but once she got rolling she had fun.  She hung out with the other kids from school, and took some spins on the roller coaster.  I asked her at the end of the day, if it had been a good day, she smiled sheepishly and nodded.  We have had a chance to talk about it a bit over the weekend and I think she understands that she doesn't need to react quite so violently to new things.

We went straight from Silverwood to grandpa's house.  We got a good night's sleep and then met up with my step sister and her girls and my step brother and his new bundle of cuteness.  I haven't held many babies lately so it was fun to get the opportunity.  I haven't gotten together with all my siblings since we were a family of 4 or 5.  My dad had set some firm ground rules of no t.v. which caused a bit of consternation for some of our kids who like to spend a good amount of time brainlessly zoned out.  They eventually figured out that there was a creek that was fun to float down.  Once the adults picked up the Frisbees and played some Frisbee golf, that looked more appealing.  There were a few games of badminton, and many many jumps on the floaties.  The original rule for the floaties was that they could only be played on in the water.  Grandpa finally gave up on that program, Thank God.

My dad  likes to keep things calm and in order.  All of us spent a few moments chuckling at his attempts at crowd control, especially when food was involved.  He calls himself grumpy grandpa, so we know that he acknowledges that he likes to keep some rules.  I thought the funniest moment was right after he had spent 20 minutes trying to get 17 children age 15 and down, mostly down to suck an M&M to a straw run it across the lawn and drop it in a cup on the other side.  It was a relay.  The oldest girls were the cup holders.  Mads got shot in the face with several mini marshmallows.  Simon had figured out that if you jabbed the straw into the marshmallow you didn't have to suck to keep it on, the problem was that you had to blow it off.  It took him several tries.  The most time consuming part of the race was getting the teams to remember their numbers, 1,2 or 3 long enough to get into teams.  It was hilarious.  We finally got one group to get all their candy and marshmallows delivered, which I thought was quite a feat.  Then dad said, "Let's do it again, only..."  All of the adults groaned and I suggested we pelt grandpa with the rest of the M&Ms, which the kids happily did.  I mean really quit while you're ahead.

We all kept our sense of humor, even while sleeping outside and sharing 2 bathrooms.  The kids didn't get into any hair pulling or screaming fits.  The three little girls spent a lot of time playing dolls which was a delightful surprise.  We were also treated to a very nice meteor shower in the evening.  It was really a perfect weekend, and I hope that it will happen more frequently then the 10 year interval we have going now.  Way to go Dad, we loved it.