The Real Deal

For those of you who are wondering when you saw the first two posts on my blog, "Has Celia gone off the deep end?" my reply is, "I haven't...yet." Yesterday, I went over to my brother Duane's house to practice a song we are working on for our first (annual?) Dennis Hunt Family reunion. The plan was to get there, go through the song a few times, then swim for a little while. Estimated total time: 90 minutes. The reality was that the kids all ran in and dispersed while I was trying to finish my phone conversation with my sister Maren and grab all the music, etc. It took a few minutes to round up the kids, and a few longer minutes to practice. During the middle of the song, in came Joni (sister to my sister-in-law Lari and mother to my preschool student Halle) with her kids. Somewhere between practicing our song and heading out to the pool, Joni convinced me that I needed to start a blog, and she sat me down and walked me through it. Just for practice we used some pictures on Duane and Lari's computer, so the picture of the dolls in the car are courtesy of my 11-year photographer niece. Thanks, Brittany!

Here are some pictures of real people doing real things yesterday:

Due to the rains and the drop in temperature last week, the water was more than a little chilly and left the swimmers gasping and shivering, yet they perservered so long that Lari, who can never let anyone leave her home hungry, had enough time to run to the store for BBQ supplies and plenty of time to prepare a bounteous meal.

After lunch (I'm sure they didn't wait the recommended one hour), they were back in the pool.

The water had warmed up a few degrees, but even so, some congregated on the sun-soaking surface of the trampoline to thaw.

After a total elapsed time of 7 hours 15 minutes, we said our final goodbyes. When I asked Lari if we could practice our song again on Monday, her reply indicated that she could do it on Monday, but not in the morning. I wondered if it also indicated that she wasn't up to another 7 hour party. Thanks, Duane and Lari, for letting us all hang out so long. We'll try not to overextend our stay next time. How does the saying go about fish and guests both stinking after a while? (I haven't quite figured out if we were the fish or the guests.)