Meaningful Glances

A Diet Mt. Dew and several powdered mini donuts are, as I'm finding out right now, a rather lame attempt at chemically coping with a lack of sleep. You could probably infer from the photo above (Wizard Falls, Metolius River in the background) that we've just been on a vacation. If you are a part of, or know of our family, then you wouldn't even need to infer - you'd just know. Slightly less regularly now than in the days before children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren littered the literal and metaphorical landscape of our familial life, my dad's side of the family - as many as can make it - gather in central Oregon on or around the 4th of July for hijinks, shenanigans, card-playing, and, of course, vast amounts of calories. And let's not forget laughter. Like an effervescent glue (acid free!) that adheres pictures to pages, so this ubiquitous yet unseen substance holds together our renunions, preserving them for years to come with ever evolving inside jokes, pranks, and/or general tom-foolery (gaudy rainbow panoplies notwithstanding). After a year or two hiatus (I can't remember which, and I don't care enough to figure it out), and some "judicious" planning (read "saving money for gas"), we caravanned over to Tollgate - a spacious development of nice homes situated in the Deschutes National Forest just outside of Sisters - with my oldest brother, his family, and our parents for a few days of R & R, only in the case of my little family, the first "R" could well be substituted with "red-eyed" in place of the more conventional "rest." Don't get me wrong - we had a tremendous time being with the rest of the family - but the nights were shorter than planned, thanks mostly to an out-of-sorts 2-year old who, despite stellar and easy-going trips to the beach in the past, decided that she was most unimpressed with the sleeping arrangements at our Tollgate rental house, as well with her perceived lack of proximity to "mama." I'll say no more, lest I begin to sound ungrateful for the rest of the trip, which I most certainly am not.

The Tollgate pool was, with little doubt, the main attraction for the little ones this year. The mere mention of a pool or swimming can wipe away the darkest and most pitiful clouds from Evelyn's face, and I estimate a similar level of interest in my brother's three daughters, based, mostly, on the screams and shouts of delight, as well as the persistent requests for me to display my pool hand-standing abilities. I, in my avuncular magnanimity, could hardly say no to those shining faces (or quivering uvulas if the request was loud and close enough). If, in the picture above, it looks as though Evelyn (far right) couldn't be happier, it's likely because she honestly couldn't be. She got to go to the "cool" (don't know why - "p-p-pool" just doesn't seem to register) every day we stayed! "That be a good idEEa," she would tell you if you were to suggest such a plan again, or just "Yaaaaaaay!" with a definitive nod of assent. On Saturday, all the great-grandkids (to my grandparents, anyway) in attendance got to go - with supervision of course - to the Wizard Falls Fish Hatchery on the banks of the Metolius River to feed the fish and have a picnic. While perhaps not as engaging as getting to be in water themselves, the kids enjoyed themselves thoroughly, throwing bits of foul-smelling "food" to the swarming schools of trout and sturgeon and watching them flail about in a sort of desperate, Darwinian contest to decide which would be fed and which would go hungry. Doesn't that sound fun to you?

Later that evening, after the big family dinner and a discussion with one of my uncles, my brother, and later my cousin that was both spirited and lengthy, and in which we also - once again - solved all of the church's problems (tongue's in my cheek there), we (mostly just the men) gathered at my grandparents rental house for a "late-night party," which is usually our way of saying "playing cards until 10pm or so." Usually. I'll be darned (literally, I will be mended like a sock) if we didn't finish up the last game until almost midnight, when someone (*cough*Jeff*cough*) mercifully let Scott (my oldest brother) shoot the moon to win our first ever game of seven-handed hearts. For those unfamiliar, seven is a slightly ridiculous number of people to play hearts with, but it made for some interesting moments. By interesting, of course, I mean "horrible," but that's only because I lost. And that took us right in to Sunday morning - a time to clean up and prepare to leave, and also a time to gather as a group of like faith to worship God and share in yet another meal together before finally giving our hugs goodbye and going our different ways. For our part, we backtracked in to Sisters to top off the tank (ouch), take a few pictures of the eminently picturesque mountains for which the town was named, and stock up on caffeine-laced products before our three-plus hour ride back home. Even though we arrived feeling something not unlike lethargic, I speak with confidence for all three of us when I say (write) that we are glad we had the chance to go, glad that we are part of a family that makes it such a priority to get together, and above all, glad that Evelyn can now sleep in her own bed.