We are family!

Yesterday we spent the afternoon having a picnic at my Dad and Oma’s place. It was just my Dad, grandparents, us and my brother Jim’s family – but Jim’s family is an instant party. It came as quite a shock five years ago when I found out I had an older brother. Jim contacted my father claiming he was his son. Not your every day occurrence. Jim looks so much like my Dad that a DNA test wasn’t necessary – plus we all figured if someone WANTS to be related to us, he’s automatically in. And with Jim my father’s potluck family grew exponentially. Not only did my Dad have three daughters from three different women in three different decades, he now had an older son and grandkids. Jim and his girlfriend felia have seven kids total – Joe and twins Dominic and Christian from Ofelia’s prior relationship, Amanda and Jessica from Jim’s prior marriage, and soon a product of them both - twins James and Julius. So many kids are a sight to behold, especially since they’re such a great family – Jim and Ofelia get compliments all the time on how well the kids behave and how well they all get along. Not only am I proud to be some small part of their clan – I am overjoyed at Noah having such a great Uncle Jim, Aunt Ofelia, and a handful of doting cousins. It was a really lovely afternoon – beautiful weather, BBQ, badminton, volleyball, and water guns galore. It felt like summer – and like family.

The rest of the weekend was pretty low key. Noah and I spent all Friday afternoon comparing kitchen tables in Cherry Hill. I checked out the JC Penney home sale and found two sets I liked – and then went to three other furniture stores to compare, but Penney’s sale prices could not be beat. So we decided on the less expensive and more modern of the two sets. Of course it’s on back order and won’t be here until next month, so Mark and I will continue to eat on TV tables in the middle of our large kitchen. Noah was as always adorable and patient with our shopping expedition – except for the car seat bits. That night Mark and I enjoyed The Incredibles and a bottle of Shiraz after Noah went to bed. Saturday morning we hit SuperFresh – where Noah sat in the shopping cart for the first time. We used the Floppy Seat – but still had to prop him up with large bottles of prune juice halfway through our shopping experience. That afternoon what was intended to be a short walk to the mailbox to drop of Netflix movies turned into what Mark called “a fancy soda romp” when I suggested heading to the coffee shop Canvas to get designer sodas. My grape soda was lovely as was the walk - but of course we forgot to mail the movies. Duh. There was nothing on TV that night and we weren’t awake enough to tackle Hotel Rwanda yet so we watched poor music videos on the MTVs. And yesterday morning before heading to Dad’s picnic we stopped in to see my mom and took a hike in the woods.

Last night of course we watched Survivor. I was disappointed. I know you can probably be shot for saying you don’t LOVE every NYC fireman – but honestly I wasn’t a Tom fan. I thought he was a cocky bully and I didn’t want him to win. I still wanted Ian to win – and still think he is a nice guy, if a bit of a wuss. What killed me the most about the finale is that there were all these references to Katie’s sense of humor – how she was funny but mean – however we didn’t hear her crack a joke all damn season. What kind of character-less editing is that?