"Seize the day and throttle it"

7/9/08

Well, that pretty much sums up last week. I am only getting around to posting now because of the company-fatigue-induced coma I've been in, as mentioned in my last post. Actually, I'm really glad that everyone came, but holy mackerel, even I can't keep going at that pace for more than a week. I have been trying to catch up and clean up and so forth, but mostly what has happened is I've been super lazy. I even indulged myself last night and watched one of my favorite 3-hour-long movies, "Sense and Sensibility" and ate a whole bag of popcorn and a root beer, while the bathrooms still sat there dirty and the trashes and laundry were overflowing. Aaahhhhhhhhhh...

So anyways, I guess I should tell you what we all did. "All" meaning: me, Mark, Madelyn, my parents Rich and Carolyn, and Tyler, Monica, Nathan, Kevin, Lori, baby Hattie, Maria, Megan, and 60 other members of my extended family from my mom's side. (8 of them were staying with us, at least for part of the week...) Mark had to work at his rotation and so missed out on a lot, but he was there for the evenings and all of Saturday.

Monday: My family arrives from Utah around 6:30. All the meticulous housework I'd been doing for the past few weeks is obliterated within the first 5 minutes. We have dinner and call it a night.

Papa Rich reading to Nathan and Madelyn

Tuesday: In what turned out to be the hottest, stickiest day of the summer, we decide to go walk around outside all day at the zoo, aquarium, and botanical gardens. I was sweating in ALL the wrong places. I found myself looking wistfully at the hippos chilling out in their pond. That's how hot it was.

Later, we managed to take some family pictures. Madelyn, of course, kept trying to run away. One of the best shots of our family ended up being the one where we're holding her upside-down to prevent her escape (see sidebar). Go figure. Look how Chinese her eyes look!

Kevin and Lori went out to celebrate their 3rd wedding anniversary that night. They dated in high school and it seems like they've been together for ages. I wish I had their prom picture. But I digress...

Baby Hattie, Kev, Lori, me and Madelyn, who thinks the zoo is fun because she can climb on stuff

One of three different peacocks Madelyn chased that day

back l-r: Maria, Monica (5 months pregnant with baby girl), Nathan, Tyler, Kevin, Hattie, Lori, Melissa, Madelyn and Mark

front: Rich, Carolyn, Megan

Click the photo to enlarge and see how cheezy my smile looks up close, and see that Madelyn is laughing and not crying.

Wednesday: We spent a lot of money, as I recall. Lori and I raided the clearance racks at Target and got some stuff for carnival games for the reunion. Then most of us trekked to the Cottonwod Mall, which is on the west side of town. Maria was on a quest to get some cute clothes, since the only mall in St. George is miniscule and thus everyone is wearing the same thing all the time.

That night we had an early celebration for Tyler and Monica's birthdays, and Madelyn had to throw her requisite fit that she didn't get to open all their presents.

Madelyn trying on stilettos at Wet Seal with Auntie Meg and Auntie Maria

Having some b-day pie for Ty and Monica. There's more than one weirdo in my family. See if you can pick them out.

Thursday: A small group of extended family went to a morning session at the Albuquerque temple, which was really neat. The kids played in the backyard with our water thingy and had a great time.

That evening, the actual reunion began down in Los Lunas at the church for a raffle and dinner, and naturally, an exhibition of a large, hairy arachnid and a giant long-horned beetle. You have to know my Aunt Shannon.

This girl is so happy when she's in water. She takes after her dad

My nephew "Cousin Nathan" Murset. He and Madelyn got along really well, surprisingly. You never know with those two...

I knew Madelyn was into bugs, snails, snakes, lizards, frogs, etc. but even I was surprised at her enthusiasm for this tarantula. I don't know his name, so I'll call him Creepy. Aunt Shannon, who is our family's resident entymologist and biology teacher, was raffling off Creepy to help raise money for our family fund. My cousin Ethan was the lucky winner. His parents didn't seem too thrilled.

Madelyn held Creepy three or four different times, and then spent the whole ride home shouting, "I WANT TO HOLD THE SPIDER!!" Mark and I also found a long-horned beetle that was over 3 inches long, which we showed to Shannon and she took it for her bug collection. Madelyn wanted to hold that, too, but it had nasty pincers.

Friday: More shopping. (I really loved that part of last week.) My mom and I went to some bead stores, and I got a ton of supplies, because I'm going to be selling my jewelry wares online soon. (You''ll be hearing an earful about that for sure.) Then a few of us braved the heat again and went to Old Town. It's the original part of Albuquerque, and it's a bunch of shops centered around the 300-year-old San Felipe de Neri church. You should have heard this mariachi band that was playing there (at the plaza, not in the church...). They could sure belt it out.

The whole Chatwin flock (herd? gaggle? hoard?) descended upon a city pool Aunt Lorri rented out for a couple hours. It was the first swim for Hattie and her two other baby cousins, and a welcome reelief for the poor saps who decided to go trudge around the zoo, aquarium and botanical gardens that day in the sultry heat.

That night we went to my Aunt Susan's house for a huge dinner and fireworks shindig. Some of us were fairly eaten alive by mosquitos.

Albuquerque Old Town and San Felipe de Neri church

Lori and Hattie, 3 months old. That baby is so deliciously cuddly. I wanted to eat her up.

Saturday: My mom and I hosted the reunion's Jewelry Fest, which despite our best efforts still took like, 6 hours. But we helped the ladies make some cute stuff. (Thanks, Aunt Susan, for hosting everything at your house in Peralta!)

Then, with a couple hours on our hands, me, Maria and our cousin Chrisanna decided to go back to Albuquerque to go to Target to go shoe shopping. If you don't think driving 30 miles each way was worth it, then you obviously don't understand the love affair that many a woman has with Target. I think it was the third time I had been there that week. But so what.

That night we had a big ol' dutch oven dinner and hung out as a clan, and then eventually said our goodbye's and went back home collapse. Madelyn wore her swimsuit from about 11:00am to 7:00pm that day. It was a good day for her, running around outside, getting wet and dirty and shunning her afternoon nap (although that backfired and by the end of the night she was a beastly troll from being so tired).

Jewelry Fest 2008

babies!!

Cousins Hattie Murset (3 mo.), McKayla Barton (4 mo.) and Noelia Peterson (3 mo.) Hattie and Noelia were born on the same day!

Cousins Nathan, Lily and Madelyn having fun together

Me with my sister Maria and sister-in-law Monica. We're in the brunettes club.

Sunday: Got up at the crack of dawn to see everyone off. Spent the rest of the day in a discombobulated stupor.

So there. Now you know what happened. I think I just set a record for longest new post. So until the 4th of July weekend 2010, that's it for the Chatwin reunion. PHEW!