I'm not dead!

This may have been the longest I've ever gone without blogging. I don't like it. This week I've been working from 8:00 am to 5:00 pm, and then helping with VBS from 6:00 until 9:00. Factor in driving, meals, and sleep, and I have had zero free time. So I took the afternoon off. I have e-mails to send and packing to do and a going-away present to finish, and a blog to post. Maybe a nap to take.

I did not post last week because I was on vacation # 1. I know, I lucked out this year. Mel invited Ange and I on her annual family reunion/vacation. It was so different from the family vacations I'm used to; there were 30 people. I was living in The Big House with 20 of them, and everyone else was in the little beach house down the road. The cousins varied in age from 6 to mid-twenties, and they were ALL boys. It was a big, loud, chaotic, competitve and hilarious group of people. I got used to hiding any food that I wanted, always putting down the toilet seat, getting creamed in mini golf. One cousin held up one of my bobby pins and asked what it was.

I honestly expected it to be awkward. Me, a complete stranger, crashing a family event. But the second night Ange and I were up two hours after Mel had gone to bed, talking and laughing with everybody. The next morning, uncles were teasing me because I couldn't reach the coffee mug shelf. Soon I was having my morning coffee with the aunts, cousins were tipping me out of chairs, and I was having in depth conversations about the differences in urination habits between the sexes. I learned to dish it and take it like a pro (below the belt is not a term this family is aware of) and laughing over family stories and old jokes.

Although they didn't quite feel like family, and the beach house didn't exactly feel like home, it was close. I was happy eating, showering, and sleeping there. I could relax and be myself there. I felt like I did belong there, even like it belonged to me a little bit. A big part of that is how gracious and good that family was. But I was also surprised to transition so easily into such a different environment than the one I'm used to.

Good thing, since I move in a month and a half. To live with 4,000 people, the vast majority of them boys. Now I know that it will be just plain fun.