Sunday, July 6, 2008

'Home' For the Fourth

This weekend we gathered the clan and headed down to Blanding for the 4th of July and a family reunion. If it were up to me, I'd never go to any family reunions. Not even my own. I have various and sundry reasons as to why, not the least of which is that I'm a hater. As I grow older, I get more and more comfortable with who I am. That comfort doesn't extend to family reunions.

The original plan for the reunion included a float. After flip-flopping several times, someone decided we should try to put it together the night before. We ended up doing a junk-yard wars version of a float. I still have a hard time believing that the bunch of A-types that are my brothers signed off on this:


The real beauty of this float was that tassled thing in the background. If you had to guess, what would you think it was? It's supposed to be a rainbow. My only constructive suggestion was to leave it out entirely.

The 11-year old bad-ass water gunner and sweet bandanna arm-bands were just bonuses. We never did really fit in around town and I'm pretty sure this isn't going to help things.



Friday night was my turn to cook. I took a flier and did my beer-boiled brats as well as Italian sausages done in beer and apple cider. I guess it wasn't that big of a risk, since I cooked it at my brother's house instead of my mom's house. If my mom had known how it was done, there would have been no end to my mom's despair. After all, my mother still thinks I was the worst kid in town and doesn't shy away from telling others. After the float, it was good to be able to do some damage control with the sausages.

Friday night was the fireworks show. It. . . was. . . awesome. Seriously. Two things about the fireworks show took me by surprise. First was how good it was. Second was how many people were there. I left my parents' house, drove less than a mile, and found myself fighting a good ol' Utah-County style crowd right there in San Juan County. I'm still puzzling over where all those people came from.

Saturday we had the luau and the talent show. The problem is that my kids are a little small for talents and school robbed me of any talents that are viewer-friendly. Lilia did end up busting out an enthusiastic dance routine to Michael Jackson's "Rock with You."

The fun and games ended Sunday. But not before we went to the Blanding 5th ward. My home ward. Over the weekend I noticed a lot of people are looking a lot older. Morris Swenson and Clisbee Lyman were not two of those people. I'm pretty sure they are two of the three nephites. There was also a gem during fast-and-tell-your-story meeting. This old bird that recently moved to town gave a rousing account of each of her children that moved to town as well as where they live, a description of her garden, her house, and her shed. She also described in wonderful detail their woodshop and a food storage cellar that they dug under the woodshop, which unearthed an underground spring. How did she know it was a spring? Because it had water in it during the winter AND the summer. Then she described how they went about trying to maintain the cellar while capturing the water in a storage tank. Riveting stuff.

3 comments:

Mr. Flynn said...

You should have told your Mom about the beer just as she was putting that last bite into her mouth and then let the fireworks go. If I was your brother and needed to get back at you for something that is the first thing that would have popped into my mind to do.

yeah, I only have to listen to Ilene tell every chance she gets how she was mistreated as a child and how her husband is never there and how her tennis team doesn't fully appreciate her. Well, and then Bridget's other sister can whine a bit too. But it is small potatoes really. As for my side of the family we just try to avoid my Dad's endless nutrition advice.

Morkthefied said...

And then there was the guy who hadn't been to town for years, but mentioned every single person he ever knew who lived in town at some point. Love the tell-your-story meetings.

Ellen James said...

That is so funny. I absolutely love testimony meetings in Moab...they are my favorite! I'm sure Blanding's are about the same.

One time this lady got up and told all this terrible stuff about her 16 year old grand-daughter and all the bad things she was doing (she met a guy on the internet, ran off with him, etc.). Then, at the end, she said she was coming to visit for a couple of weeks and wondered if the YW would befriend her. It was hilarious...my sisters and I were all visiting and we were sitting in the back row laughing our heads off.

Sounds like you had a good time visiting home for the 4th. Oh, and nice float!