Crazy 'Week

This was Reunion Prep week. It should be in all capital letters. We had a lot of the work done, but the food was killing me! Sally was a big help. It would have been a bigger help if I had known how to use the tabs on Excel better. There were some hidden tabs and I thought Sally had left off the produce and bread. I worked to recreate it… a duplicate effort.

Tom worked on projects he wanted to finish. We rented a slave. Aaron came to spend the week with us. He was a hard worker but he still had a hard time keeping up with everything Tom was doing. They moved wood, chopped down a tree, mowed yards, cut up downed limbs and I don’t know what all else. Aaron mastered the riding lawn mower. It’s zero turn and has a learning curve. But he did a great job.

I was trying really hard to finish up the book on finance. It had all gotten approved and sent to the copy editor— Deborah. Now she had tons of questions for me. Our goal was to get it done before the reunion… but that didn’t happen. Deborah got to chapter 9. I’m still back on the edits of chapter 8. In the meantime, a former client asked for a white paper to launch his cryptocurrency and he wanted it NOW. I had to say, sorry, I can’t do it until after the reunion. And then the book people asked for a two-page synopsis of the book. And someone was supposed to get a complex sales project to me the first of the month. I am not sad he is slow and I have not seen it yet.

We hired a house-sitter to take care of the chickens and cats and garden while we were gone. Our neighbor does a great job, but occasionally chickens die on her watch and she’s traumatized when that happens. So this time we decided to spare her…even though she’d be delighted to help. Our garden has been generous with cucumbers and some zucchini. Our zucchini plants typically produce for a while then suddenly shrivel and die when insects attack. However, we added a lot of horse manure and compost to the soil this spring and the plants seem very vigorous this year.

Tom and I left Thursday afternoon and drove to Jonathan and Kristy’s house. We took the truck and the trailer. We packed bedding and games and all kinds of stuff. And as we were driving down the road we thought of a few things we forgot. On the other hand, there were many things we remembered to bring.

Friday we left Jonathan’s and drove to Costco’s in Kansas City. We arrived about 10:30 and nearly 4 hours later walked out with $1500 in food. We went to the reunion site and unpacked all the food. Then we went to dinner and to Aldi for smaller items and those things Costco didn’t have. We finished unpacking the food at about 9pm and went and crashed at the hotel. We got up pretty early the next morning and made a run to Walmart for the last items. I’m sure we overbought on some things, especially ground beef. And no doubt we underbought on some other things. But we shall all be well fed.

Saturday we didn’t get to the reunion site until nearly 11am. Then we worked to organize the food by meals. We at least got breakfasts and lunches organized and other meals labeled.

About that time we got a phone call from Sally that Mom had fallen and broken her hip. It happened about 6pm on Friday night as they were touring Liberty Jail. While Sally was solicitous and hovering, Mom still lost balance and fell on the cement. They called an ambulance and she went to Liberty Hospital. They gave her excellent care and she had a hip replacement on Saturday morning. The surgery went well, but all surgery is tough on the body. Mom’s a trooper and she seems to be recovering as well as can be expected. People have been driving over to visit her.

Families started trickling in about 1pm and continued arriving up until 8pm. The Arkansas Fox family was in charge of dinner on Saturday night. It was a little tough as it was Sally’s recipe. She’d planned on being here to help, but she was at the hospital with mom. However, a few phone calls answered all our questions. We started dinner late as we were getting people settled and answering questions. But lots of people pitched in and we had ample food! Our night was Rigatoni. We made a separate gluten free pan for Kathy and Jillian and watched to make Kera’s meal soy-free.

It was an exhilarating and exhausting day, but I slept poorly that night. Sunday we were up early for an 8:30 church service. It was fast Sunday, so that made breakfast simple for many of us. Some went to the early service, some to a later one. Steve and Kathy drove 1.5 hours to an old ward they’d attended and they were well received. Some went to visit Mom, some shopped.

We had Taco Salad for dinner— the Sue Fox family was in charge. We also had pictures in the afternoon and games after dinner. Also lots of toy playing, lego tower building, a marshmallow/spaghetti tower building contest, jigsaw puzzles and conversations.

It’s great to see kids of a same age but from different families having fun together. And there were many adult clusters of conversation. Then you have the melt-bead table with kids from 3 up to adults making designs. These are tiny beads that are put on pegs and then ironed to melt them together. It is meticulous work and yet these little kids persist and make amazing creations.

So far, a fun time is being had by all.