We made it home from The West a few weeks ago. Things got busy at my Mom & Dad's pretty quickly, and I had to stop posting. (again)
The trip was really wonderful.
My Dad is that Dad that never really took much time off, never relaxed. I think, in retrospect, that his idea was that he would work really hard and then, when he retired, he would have all the fun he'd put off. In retrospect, I kind of thought "Fat Chance."
But damned if he isn't doing it. The family togethernessfest in Yellowstone was his idea, and his gift to us. I had a great (albeit long) walk, that started out as a walk with Charlie & Scott & Mom & Bridget & Dane and Dad, that turned out to be a walk with Dad, 2.5 mile to a geyser that Mom wanted to see, and that we all missed actually blowing. He told me stuff about his work, and about his retirement, and was as open and talkative and cool and wonderful as I've ever seen him. Relaxation actually suits him, which, I guess, makes sense, given that he's procrastinated it his whole life.
It was fun to see my mom, and to have Scott beat her more than once at Scrabble, which served her right for all the times she creamed me at Sorry when I was four. She's busy from dawn til dusk, attending to most everyone else's needs.
My younger sister Kate is just plain kind, and a wonderful, doting Mom. Sam and Ella have really distinct personalities, and she delights in them both. I don't envy her that little kid stage, but she just seems to thrive on it. She's married to the magnificent Dan the man, and through any ups and downs, they are a great match. She is also very girly, and bound and determined to girl me up, as a care package full of dresses proved. And, actually, I love them. I do fear that the next care package might be makeup! She invited me to go a-waxing before we hit Yellowstone, which, thankfully, having seen the results, I'm glad I declined. Because ouch.
One of the high points was getting to know Will, Peter's oldest, who, by now is five. It was hard to get a good photo of him because HE DOES NOT STOP, but he let us take him out to dinner without his Mom and Dad, and he did come knocking on our door a couple of mornings, quite early. Peter is raising him to be a phenomenal fisherman, and, of course, the one time my camera caught him still, he was fishing. Speaking of Peter, I am blessed with a really terrific sister-in-law in Bridget. She is as down to earth and straightforward a person as you could ever meet, and she is really great with her kids, and, totally due to her patience, Willy will eventually be able to be still long enough to have his photo taken.
Kenny, the little one, has the dryest and pointiest wit. He's fun to be around, and I won't flash the picture of him in his long johns in reaction to his telling Kate that he thought they were the only two with fashion sense in our family. Unless, of course, you want to look at my flickr page. I'm worried, because he wants to go into the military, and I hate the military, and the war, and war in general. And the military. I wish he'd go to law school instead, but I guess a lot of people hate lawyers too.
We stayed, in Yellowstone, near Old Faithful, and millions of geysers. There was one that only blew in the middle of the night, and Charlie really wanted me to get up at 1 to see it go. But I didn't. There was fishing. Scott and Charlie went in a couple of rivers, and then we went up and met Peter and Dan and Bridget and the boys at a lake.
There were buffalo (a word Ella picked up on day one) all over, including in our camping area, and Charlie was fascinated with the marmot around. Okay. So was I.
Yellowstone did not explode while we were there, and for this, I was thankful.
Pete brought a grill and did much cooking for all of us.
Dad wore a cap and smoked a cigar which, with his beard made him look like Castro.
And it was all over too soon.
