MLK Weekend: as Usual

As usual Andrew took advantage of the extra day off school to come and visit us. This time he brought all six of his children. As a birthday present he had bought a ticket for Linus, son number two, to see a hockey game at the Joe Louis arena, one of the last before the Redwings move to a new home. And, as usual, I worrited (wasn’t it a character in Dickens who used that lovely word?) all evening as they drove the 500 miles to Detroit on the Thursday evening after leaving school at mid-afternoon. It was close to mid-night when they arrived—but in spite of their late arrival, they were all up before me in the morning.

As usual, Andrew’s siblings wanted to spend every possible moment with him and their children wanted to spend every possible moment with their cousins, so there was a lot of toing and froing. Fortunately the weather cooperated so there were a couple of excursions to the park to let off steam.

This is the group on Sunday night before Andrew and his family left to spend the night with the five “Canton cousins.” The day before there had been another grandson here, but he left to return to college for a new semester. The third boy down on the right is the birthday boy. Can you believe the smart, talkative and altogether adorable little girl in the striped shirt is the granddaughter who had such a rocky start in life? It really wasn’t fair for Ernie to tell her there was an alligator at the bottom of our laundry chute and that he needed to be fed. I retrieved a lot of oranges from the dirty sheets.

Note to self: this is not an attractive photo. Figure out how to use your new camera. Fast.