A Full House Is Best

This is not a post about a playing poker. It’s about last Friday October 10. That’s when my family from Pennsylvania arrived for their weekend visit. They stayed in a hotel about a mile from our house.

Having spent the morning finishing our preparation for their visit (you never really feel that you’re ready) we awaited their arrival for dinner. They had to unpack their vehicles and get settled in before they could come to the house.

I couldn’t wait until they got there so I drove down to the hotel to see them. The reunion was terrific. It was wonderful to see them all. My sister, Shari, looked great having lost over 90 pounds since her gastric by pass surgery last February. My sister, Peggy, was walking much better than she had since the last time I saw her. She had knee replacement surgery back in May. It was great to see both my brothers-in-law again too. My nephew was taller than when I last saw him last June and my niece had grown from being a little girl to being a tall preteen.

The family’s arrival at our house created an atmosphere of excitement busyness that hadn’t been there for a while. There was yet another reunion as my wife greeted everyone.

The reunion of our 4 dogs (2 of mine and 2 of theirs) didn’t go so well. I hadn’t thought ahead about the dogs getting caught up in the excitement of everyone arriving at the same time and it making them "edgy". There was some growling between my dogs, and my sister’s dog, Blossom. I quickly realized that I had mishandled the pet reunion. I put my dogs on their leashes and created a slow and calm greeting time in our back yard. This put an end to the growling for the most part. The dogs got along fine over the course of the visit but they never “played” with each other like they had the last time they were here.

There were two more “reunion” sessions as my two sons and their fiancés arrived at our house for our evening meal. We had a wonderful dinner of hamburgers and hot dogs cooked on the grill by my son, James.

After dinner we sat around and talked. James made some special Turkish coffee for my family to try. Some of them liked it and some of them didn’t. I don’t drink coffee so I didn’t even try it.

Pretty soon it was time to sing “Happy Birthday” to James and cut his birthday cake. As I stood there with everyone gathered in the kitchen I looked around and realized I was in a rare moment. Nearly everyone I love most in the world was gathered in my kitchen. I had a full house. It was a moment to treasure. I knew that there are very few times in my life that things got any better than they were at the moment.

The rest of the evening spent catching up and spending time with the family. We watched “Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader” and “Don’t Forget The Lyrics” on TV.

My nephew, Bobby, showed me how he could play the guitar and I brought out all my ventriloquist puppets to show everyone. Paula introduced our niece to the world of Webkins by giving her her own stuffed animal and letting her get online to register it.

There were a lot of other things that went on during our first day together but I can’t take the time to write all the details here. By the time it grew to be 10 o’clock or so the weary travelers from the Keystone State were ready to head to their hotel, get a good night's sleep, and get ready for the big event the next day.

We said “goodnight” and made the arrangements to meet at the hotel at noon the next day to drive to Nashville for Michael & Heather’s wedding.