Our children have one aunt on their father’s side. She loaded her two Australian Shepherds in her motor home and drove over from Boise to visit us last week. We enjoyed hearing her version of some of the family legends. When she tells the story of how she broke her arm when she was a mere toddler as a result of her big brother Will (also a toddler because they’re less than a year apart) pushing her down the stairs, she says he gave her a big kiss and then a shove. When Will tells it, he says she gave him a big kiss so he shoved her. Of course, neither of them actually remember the event, they only know it happened because their mother told them. This time the boys were a bit disappointed with a new detail - it was actually only one stair!
We were sitting at the table looking at the back yard when she innocently questioned, "How did you get that boat in your back yard?" (It’s discreetly stored along the fence at the side of the yard and it was not easy to get it there. Some of us are not real pleased with its’ location.) She immediately received unhappy reactions from three family members and decided it was a subject best not discussed. (Does anyone want to take an old drift boat off our hands and out of our yard?) A bit later she asked why we didn’t park any of our cars in the garage. Another sore subject. Let’s not even talk about the junk in the garage. We decided perhaps we should make and post a list of topics that a guest should not mention in order to avoid these awkward conversation killers that are sure to make at least one person in the family grumpy. Speaking of grumpy, please don’t ever mention to a certain person in the house that he appears grumpy. He’s not grumpy; none of us are ever grumpy in this house. It is just not allowed. Cute and fun to be with is our mantra!
We took a drive on Saturday hoping to see a herd of elk that Will had spotted earlier in the week. We didn’t see any elk but Waterloo park was a lovely site for group photo. We also stopped by Radio Shack in Lebanon so that Will and Nick could prove a point to Sue that Radio Shack guys never know what they are talking about. We were not disappointed, the first guy tried to sell me the wrong cable. We purchased an inexpensive DVD player so that we would no longer need to be at the mercy of the kid who knows how to hook up and operate the Playstation 2. Sue talks about working in a cubicle so Eric thought we needed to watch Office Space with her. The cheap DVD player worked just fine.
2 comments:
I wonder if Will's sister told him he had yellow teeth? :) (That was Jody, not me remember) I'm still amazed we've had no broken bones in this household. Not that Simon hasn't tried to break Tavin's bones....How did you manage a day at Waterloo in November without rain?
Oh, and one more thing....no matter what Kevin says, we don't need a boat. :) Wasn't that our "shared" boat years ago? We spent a few Saturdays on Freeway lake (right name?) in that thing. I think it's bad luck.
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