Another special weekend at Tangly Woods

With it being nearly a month since I last wrote, I've got some serious catching up to do and I'm going to do it in little chunks so it feels more manageable (it does not take much these days to tip me from general overwhelm to panicky overwhelm, so breaking things into small bites is a helpful strategy for me right now!). 

So for starters, I'm traveling back through my memories to the first weekend of August when we got to host yet another nephew, joined by a niece this time too! It was so special to have them make the trip. It also made me feel kinda old; like so much time has flown by since they were young cousins hanging out together with my parents in West Virginia playing monopoly. It was really sweet for me to observe the kids (now mostly teenagers/young adults) reminiscing together about times together years ago - they were clearly memorable formational experiences to spend chunks of time with Grandma and Grandpa at the Mountain House. 

It was high time that we created some new memories together at these ages and stages of life and that we did!!

I think the room we spent the most time in was honestly the garage. The ping pong table was well utilized throughout the weekend. There were lots of wonderful friendly spunky competitions. Alida and Tyler were about perfectly matched and it was fun hearing who came out on top of each of their nail biter games! We also all got in on some "around the world." In addition to ping pong, Kali had found a tiny table ping pong set at a thrift store just before they came so that also came out for a new  twist on the game. When not playing ping pong, we shared stories about life now or in the past and relived the dreaded visit that was spent largely in our bathroom when we got lice and I occupied myself for hours combing our girls' heads and Christina's while they watched Veggie Tales. This was a much more enjoyable weekend, but that time was certainly memorable too!

We played games, laughed a lot, enjoyed good food (including lots of Smiley's ice cream), laughed some more, had a fun evening with Karen, Sue, Ezzie, Grandma and Grandpa, played more games, and had a pizza supper in which I tried to keep straight 11 people's pizza preferences. I made this elaborate checklist that ended up not being very helpful at all!!! It was a nice idea though...

They promised that they will be back and we all agreed that there must not be such a long block of time between seeing each other!