The annual family get together ended a little less than 48 hours ago. Despite the fact that these shindigs get tamer every year, they’re still a little harder to recover from every time.
It’s not like we get hammered and stay up dancing every night, like we did back in our rowdy 40s; we’re old now. We can’t do that stuff and we don’t even want to. Only three of my siblings are still under fifty. One is pregnant, one has a house full of little kids and the other has always been a lightweight. One of the many beauties of middle age is that one is no longer even tempted to toss back alcohol and funny stories into the wee hours. Unless you count 8:00 pm as wee.
Personally, I still feel like I haven’t recovered from last summer’s wedding marathon.
We weren’t the full contingency, this year. All the siblings were here but Bill’s wife Jen has a big shot job that takes up a lot of her time, so we only saw her once and JP’s wife Royana stayed in LA, leaving a Roy shaped hole in the lineup. A slim, gorgeous, funny, smart shaped hole.*
Lots of the grand kids were missing as well.
We always knew the time would come when the kids were grown up enough to have their own jobs, families, responsibilities etc. and wouldn’t be able to put everything on hold to come play with us for a week or two. We just didn’t think it would happen so soon.
Tucker came home from the east coast just long enough to play in the golf tournament. All four of Joe’s boys played this year. Two of Margy’s boys (and her daughter in law) stayed in Colorado and they were missed. So were Katelyn and Chad, who stayed in Chicago.
Hey guys; Chicago’s not that far away! You couldn’t come for a weekend? (I say that in Elaine May’s voice.)
Two of my kids were missing: Zack is traveling the country with a friend and Adam is apparently afraid to put his money where his wife’s mouth is. By that I mean that Katie is always bragging about how good Adam is at everything (I have no reason to disbelieve her) but he hasn’t played in the Hubbell Open yet.
We managed to have a ton of fun despite our paltry numbers which ranged from 12 to 32, depending on how much the boat was rocking.
Hubbellpalooza begins whenever the Frank contingent arrive in town. This year, they got in right before dark on a Thursday. JP got in right after midnight. The golf tournament was Saturday and Sunday.
Woody won again.
In the twenty years since we started doing this, he’s won it ten times. I am really sick of writing his name on the trophy but until young Vince grows strong enough to get some distance on his ice rope drives, I’m afraid that’s just the way it is. This year, Jeff gave Woody a run for his money but lost in the play off. Woody’s just too unflappable. I really don’t know if anyone’s ever succeeded in getting into his kitchen. Not since he ground a fully loaded hamburger onto my head in ’72, anyway. I don’t even remember what I did but I probably deserved it.
Vince just turned 14 and last year, Jay (he has a great knack for spotting athletic talent) said that Vince was going to be the best player in the family soon. Vince has three older brothers. I think the day he actually gets to play without anyone pounding on him between swings, the game will feel like cake to him.
At least this year Tyler got to play. He hasn’t always been able to time his summer visits with the tournament so he’s missed a few years but now that he’s here to stay he’ll be a force. Hubbellpalooza went a long way towards cementing Babydoll and Babalouie’s place in the tribe. They saw so much of their extended family in the last week that they now think they’re related to half of Minnesota.
They are.
It was great watching Babydoll loosen up and become one of the kids. Babalouie was pretty loose from the gun.
Saturday, a bunch of us hit an estate sale here in town. I bought about 30 old issues of the Reader’s Digest with my Dad’s byline. I’ve been collecting them for years and they’re getting harder to find as they get older and older.
After the sale, we all headed over to the Falls for lunch at Sea Salt and sight seeing. We headed back to Mom’s for an impromptu dinner. The big party was for Sunday, after the tournament.
The tourney party was fun. We always have burgers and brats with all the fixin’s.
The Weather all week was funny; the days were usually hot and sunny and the nights were wild and wet. I left my folk’s house after the party on Sunday and the temp in my car said it was 88. In the nine mile trip home, I watched the temp drop 14 degrees and the wind hit just before I turned off the highway. It poured rain and the wind seemed like it was trying to scrub the earth clean.
I was sad because we had reserved three pontoon boats out on Minnetonka Monday morning.
When I awoke in the morning, there wasn’t a trace of the storm that had pounded us all night.
The boat day was the best!
We had three and the limit per boat was ten people so Margy kept trying to count us. She got 28 for three tries, split us up into groups of ten and we were off.
My crew consisted of Tyler, Babalouie, Megan, Babydoll, MJ, Bananas, Punkin, Hattie, Molly, Katie M. and me. We dubbed ourselves “Girl Boat.”
The next boat held Hootie, Logan, Martha, Alex, Josie, Meg, Sidsel, Andy, Finbar, Gus and Vince. We dubbed them “Teen Boat” even though half of them aren’t really teenagers any more.
The last boat held Mom, Dad, JP, Margy, Jeff, Andy, Vi, Charlie and Johnny. Quite naturally, we dubbed them “Old Boat”.
We spent the day tootling around the lake, tying the armada together to form a large platform and swimming. The water was cold, very refreshing and wonderful. The sky was blue with puffy clouds, the breeze was lovely and the only reason I didn’t swim more than I did was that it was a lot of work trying to climb up the ladder out of the water. My arms can’t do that kind of stuff well anymore.
We were well fortified with sandwiches, fruit, cookies and plenty to drink.
Tyler and Megan wrapped Babydoll and Babalouie in tiny life jackets and took the kids swimming. They loved it. The big kids spent the day trying to outdo each other with flips and jumps.
At one point in the day, I looked at the back bench of Girl Boat and saw Babydoll nestled in with Hattie, Molly, Nanners and Punkin. She looked like she’d found her people.
Babalouie loved sitting on his Dad’s lap and thinking he was driving the boat.
We had the boats from 11:30 to 5:30 and no one thought we’d stay out all day but we did. It was too much fun to stop.
In fact, around 1:00, I got a call from a certain young lady who will remain nameless. She had skipped out of the office and was waiting on the pier. We untied Girl Boat and went and picked her up. She had a lot of fun but she really did get a lot of work done on her phone under the canopy.
Then, at 3:00, Girl Boat had to return to the dock to drop off Josie, who had to get back to town to work at 4:00.
A wonderful time was had by all but we were so exhausted by the time we had to return to shore that we skipped a big dinner in favor of home and early bed times.
The next day was Dad’s 88th birthday.
My sister Katie came up with a fun gift for Dad. She suggested weeks ago that we all make cement hand prints to put out in the yard. He got about a dozen of them on his actual birthday with the rest coming in all summer until he has enough to line his walk and driveway. When everyone is finished, he’ll have 55(assuming MJ makes one for Tater Tot) personalized pavers.
The rest of the week was filled with biking, swimming, diving, eating, drinking, walking around the lake, visiting the Falls again, the Tin Fish and Sea Salt. We had huge violent storms on at least three different nights but the days were all sunny and warm.
I don’t even remember what else we did. We never made it to the Arboretum, which we love and usually hit at least once while Margy’s in town. The out of towners never got out to Tyler’s new house, despite several plans to get out there. Eight days just isn’t long enough!
But at our age, nine days would probably kill us.
*I’m hoping if I suck up enough, she’ll come next time.