family reunion

i just got back from a whirlwind trip to oklahoma for our bi-annual family reunion. what a great time! everyone (oh, except for one cousin’s spouse who i still haven’t met yet and am convinced that he’s imaginary) showed up! we hung out at this posh ranch that one of my cousins works at. he’s a chef and, of course, he did all of the cooking for the weekend and it was awesome (just don’t ask about the fat content…). we had biscuits and gravy for breakfast one day and ribs and brisket for dinner (along with the best baked beans ever — even mr. happy stuff loved them and he’s really not into baked beans– and drooltastic cheese grits). it was so very, very nice to see cousins that i hadn’t seen in such a long time and to meet baby cousins (once-and-a-half times removed or whatever) that i hadn’t seen before and to get to cuddle with my new nephew some more. i had been asked to come up with some sort of “intergenerational activity” for saturday afternoon and so i tried my best to come up with an idea that wouldn’t make anyone groan too loudly. at the last minute, i was inspired by an article in the current issue of martha stewart living and remembered the klutz book “tricky pix” and went a bought a copy to take along. it’s full of great ideas of how you can take funny photos playing with perspective and other easy tricks to make really surprising photos (think one person standing far away and another person near the camera holding their palm out flat so that it looks like the back person is tiny and standing on their hand). i think everyone enjoyed the activity and got a kick out of the dvd slideshow i created to show that night. we also enjoyed some hymn singing together that night. all told, it was a very nice time and i was very sad when it was over. sometimes it feels like such a long time between seeing everyone.