Family Matters

Today, I went to a family reunion for my mom's dad's side of the family. I think there were about 50 people total (not the highest count for one of our reunions, but not bad). Most of it was my grandpa's legacy, as there were 26 from his branch alone, out of several siblings, and not all of us were even there.

There were burgers (veggie burgers for mom and I), brats, macaroni salad, pickles, green beans, baked beans, wild rice hotdish, goulash (pretty much the only thing my grandpa makes), and desserts and chips galore. My aunt works for Frito Lay, so she always has chips. Always. Which means, unfortunately, that we always have chips. We had 4 bags of chips left over from our 3rd of July Party. God, Doritos are addicting. Literally. The MSG that they put in chips and other salty snacks and foods tricks your body into thinking it needs MSG, which causes you to crave more chips and thus buy more chips. I had kicked the chip addiction until last month. Now every time I smell doritos, I really really really want to eat them. There are still 2 bags of potato chips left in the closet, which are really really really tempting... But I can say no, and should say no. I will bring them to my birthday party so I don't eat them all.

There was volleyball and water balloons, a scavanger hunt and a playground. Lots of games and of course lots of talking. I didn't interact too much with anyone outside my branch of the family. Funny how that works, huh? At a family reunion, you don't talk with the people you haven't seen in years or ever, you talk with the people you're going to see again on Wednesday.

My grandma, who lives just a short distance from the park where the reunion was held, scooted down here on her electric scooter. She almost hit my uncle and me on accident. She is in poor health, though, and was out of breath by the time she got to the park. One wouldn't think that scootering takes any effort, but if you have COPD I guess it does. Grandpa walked with her to make sure she got there safely, then walked home, and drove back with the goulash. The drove home again to clean the kitchen. Then drove back, hung out with his nephew by the cars, then drove home again, leaving the goulash and grandma there. My aunt and cousin, who live down the street from them, walked her home with the crock pot. Her scooter left them running after her. She didn't slow down though. She's not very compassionate.

When she left, though, she left a birthday card with another aunt. Inside was a card, and 2 envelopes. One for my cousin, her son, and one for me, each with $50 inside. She asked my cousin and aunt to come clean the house once a month for her. But after the first time, they were unable to, and so the job went to me, but when my brother and I were going to go over there, she said she had no idea what we were talking about and no, we shouldn't come over to clean. Apparently, she felt bad or something because I just got paid $50 for doing absolutely nothing. My cousin got paid a second time, in cash, because he never cashed the first check because he thought $50 was too high, and it annoyed her so she paid him cash. Wow, do I feel guilty. I don't deserve this money, even though I need it. It's like finding a bag of money on the sidewalk when your house is being foreclosed on. Do you keep it? Do you turn it in? I'm struggling between honor and pride vs. need, as well as struggling between my grandma's pride (not to be confused with generosity. As I said, she has no compassion) vs. my pride. I'm kind of thinking that since my pride is against two formidable foes at once, my pride's going to lose. But my guilt is telling me that Grandma will get a really nice Christmas present, which mollifies my pride somewhat.

Hm...

Long time, no post, eh?

Hello faithful and devoted readers. ; p
I am sorry. I have been really busy and tired. I have not been able to stay awake long enough to read your blogs, let alone write one of my own. So much has happened the past week and a half.

1) Rhode Island. The vacation was a lot of fun. Here is a link to the public facebook album: Link! The purpose of the trip was to attend my brother's graduation from officer candidate school with the Navy. Once he gets a bachelors degree, he will be an officer. For the next three years, he is Officer Candidate Jordan and will become Ensign Jordan after graduation from the U in 2012. So he is home. It's a nice change. Even though I don't automatically have privacy anymore, it's nice to see him and talk and everything.

2) Rhode Island take 2. I didn't really talk about Rhode Island in the first attempt, did I? Anyway, we went to the beaches a lot. It was too cold to do anything but dip our feet in, but it was still nice to see the ocean. We spent our first morning at Easton's Beach. Some of the water was maroon/red from the algae/seaweed. There was a big machine/tractor that scooped up the red gunk that piled up on the beach. I prefer small freshwater lakes to the ocean, but it's cool to see every now and then. We went to a few nature places, including Purgatory Chasm. It was cool. Just this large rift in the rock. It was a pretty cool place with lots of exploring opportunities. It is just off of Purgatory Road. It's also Cemetary #32 of Newport, though I was not able to find any markers unless you count an unlabelled cement block. We went to some history places, too, including the Newport History Museum and Shop, which was a little biased and boring, and the Plymouth re-creation of the 1627 village with a Wampanaog village as well, the Mayflower 2 and Plymouth Rock. It was all pretty cool. The graduation ceremony itself was super short, only 20 minutes or so. That's ok with me. I don't need to sit through a long ceremony and neither does my brother, I'm sure. Although he had to stand.

3) Girl Scout Day Camp. Oh man, I love day camp! It is sooooooooo fun. I usually don't write an exhorbitant amount of letters to emphasize my meaning, but it's the only way I can really describe it. It is sooooooooooo fun. It was my first year being a leader, which is less fun than a caddy but less exhausting. Although I conked out at 8:30 usually every night after camp. It's very tiring, running around from 7:45 am til 5:15 pm. I was bus check-in for L-Z last names, so I had to be there early and stay late to make sure there were no abandoned girls left. It was tons of fun, though. I was a brownie leader this year, so I had 15 8-year-olds running around all the time. Brownies don't follow instructions as well, nor to they have much respect for personal space (I got felt up a lot and people just plopped into my lap without much notice), but they're so darn cute. I learned a lot about their families in 4 days. They don't require much prompting to talk, just a "hello" and off they go. Even the shy ones will open up with some one-on-one attention. There are always a couple tough ones. I used 3 bandaids on one girl, and another one cried 3 times a day. Others were out of control hyper at times, and a couple were so tired by the end of the week, they got really crabby and upset about things easily. Overall, I think everyone had a lot of fun, though. Myself included.

4) My 12 year old cousin got a cell phone for her birthday. I'm not sure how I feel about that. I don't think she needs one yet, but I probably should have gotten a cell phone about 4 years before I did. Ah well, now I can keep in touch with her better. : )

5) I need to clean my grandparents house. My cousin and my aunt shunted house cleaning duty onto me, and the things I need to clean are really obscure things that I would never think of cleaning, such as baseboards. Who honestly cleans the baseboards?

6) Sorry that I don't have pictures with this. The internet is slow so it's taking too long to upload even 1 picture. I'll try to do a picture post tomorrow while I'm at Dunns.