A good time this past weekend. My family came down on Saturday to visit. Originally I had thought it would just be my parents, but it turned out my sister was able to make it along with my nephew, Gavin. We went to lunch at the Essenhaus, came back and hung out a while, and then when my parents and sister went to Shipshewana for about an hour or hour and half or so, we got to watch Gavin.
Very cool, fun time...I think when you get a chance to spend time alone with a "new" relative (Gavin's about 10 months), it helps your sense of feeling like an Uncle or Aunt. Obviously its been great the other times my family gets together, but often, because of the number of people and the shortage of time, you selfishly feel less like you are watching your nephew rather than your sister's kid or your parent's grand kid.
I know its somewhat semantics here, but having time alone helps create that personal connection/attachment/relativity. Anyway, I know both Jackie and I really enjoyed watching him for that hour or so...playing with some blocks we had (building them up and watching him knock them down and laugh), lifting him high like a human airplane and see his smile get bigger and bigger, just really fun times.It made for a very nice weekend, and in some ways, two very nice weekends back to back (Jackie's parents came to visit last weekend. I was so tired of traveling after the holidays (6 straight weekends on the road was just too much), that I didn't really want to go anywhere for at least a month. We have basically accomplished that, but it was nice that each of our families were able to visit so that we were able to have some good times with them despite not going anywhere.
For the next week or so however, there will be much traveling again. On Wednesday of this week, Jackie and I leave for Union Pier, Michigan for my firm's annual retreat. Its essentially a meeting where the partners of the firm plan for the entire year - really covering everything - while the spouses get a chance to do some shopping, go to a spa, whatever. Then we usually hit up some nice restaurants for dinner on a couple of nights and have lots of good food and good drink. This will be the third retreat I have gone on with the firm, and thus far I enjoy them immensely. I know it can be a little stressful for Jackie to work to get her guest teacher plans together and this is always a busy time of year for her class, but hopefully it can provide a chance for her to relax for a couple of days as well. After the retreat, we head back this way Friday morning, then head down to Fort Wayne to pick up Ellie (decided to leave her with the in laws considering they volunteered and we were unsure about boarding her this young. Then on Saturday, we head up to Lansing to celebrate my sister's birthday, which is actually Sunday. Then next week, Monday my dad has surgery for something related to his colon, so I will be going up again either Tuesday or Wednesday to visit him in the hospital post surgery and maybe give my mom a break. So its going to be a busy next week or so, but hopefully things will all go smoothly.
The place we are staying at Union Pier actually has wi-fi, so I might actually bring the laptop and see if some blogging inspiration hits me there when I stare at a couple feet of snow drifting off the lake.
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