Reunion Season

We're about to head off to Delaware for the second family reunion of the summer.  My folks rolled snake-eyes and ended up hosting both the Caldwell and Whitaker reunions.  Now my mom's side, I see at least once a year and have always been closer to.  It's this matriarchy based on eating "salad" (it's a Southern thing in which you call "salad" something that is made of Cool Whip, cream cheese, mandarin oranges, and marshmallows.  And because it's "salad" you can eat it with your dinner.  And still have dessert.  Cause that was "salad.") and singing hymns during thunderstorms with power outages.

My dad's side, on the other hand, I seldom see.  And there are SCADS of them.  He's one of eight kids and each of them had a pile of their own, all of whom have grown and had kids of THEIR own, so yowsa.  Lots of people.  Few of whom I will recognize.  The summer trip to my dad's parents' house was always kind of dull.  No cousins my age, so I had to kind of glom onto the older kids.  The adults were really quiet and mostly just sat, occasionally whistling.  The women cooked most of the day.  The men, when they talked, discussed what road they'd taken to get there.    As an adult, I tend to look back on it like this Foxfire Live journey to Appalachia, but mostly it was just boring.

My kids love big piles of cousins however they can get them, so they should have fun.  They'll have their immediate cousins, plus MY cousins' kids...which I guess are first cousins once removed?  Plu-perfect?  Dunno.  Anyway.  More salad!  And then dessert!  hooray!