Memorial Day Weekend

This Memorial Day weekend was great. 

For starters, my sister and brother-in-law were in town, which is always cause for a good time.  They are awesome.  They live out east, but are soon to be moving to Brazil to start an amazing adventure, so we were so happy they could make it home for a few days to see their adorable faces.  We will be planning a trip to visit them within the next year or two (of course), and we are all set up with Skype and WhatsApp to chat/text for free, so keeping in touch as we always have won't be a problem.  But it is always nice to have them here.

Some would say my sister and I are two peas in a pod.  We have a lot in common and we look a lot alike, or so people say.  Our personalities and mannerisms are also quite similar.  I followed her to Costa Rica, she picked up golf after me, we both learned to love Spanish and travel...  So it's no surprise that I followed suit and bought the same camera as she did. 

We even apparently part our hair the same way and hold our cameras the same.

On Saturday, we had a bunch of family over for a BBQ.  Jon fired up the grill in the pouring rain for burgers and brats and we had a delicious spread of food.  When originally planned, I had had such visions of sunshine and sitting on our patio, maybe even swimming at our pool.  I'm sure everyone hoped for the same for the holiday weekend.  Fortunately, our living/dining room was the perfect size for everyone there, as the afternoon started out dreary and soon turned to rain and later hail.  We spent hours catching up on vacations and new jobs and summer plans with the family, which was nice.   

We also had some time to start up the first of many games to be played.  And I had some fun practicing with the new love of my life, my camera.  :)  I'll have to post more later about this camera, because there are just so many awesome things to say about it.

A rare moment catching my dad smiling nicely on camera.  He's like Chandlier from Friends...can't quite seem to smile well for photos.  But I caught him here, because he thought I was only taking a picture of the dominoes.

Caught the little yellow train in the air, by Kristen's head.

It is so nice to slow down life a bit and sit and enjoy a fun game of dominoes.  My family is a huge fan of games, so if you know my husband you can see how nicely he fits in.   Even though my dad takes his sweet time on every turn while Jon always seems to be sitting next to him going absolutely crazy waiting his own turn...it's entertaining to say the least.

On Sunday, Jon and I packed up to spend the rest of the weekend at my parents' house with my sis and bro-in-law.  We had no definite plans for the day, so we all spent the morning lounging around reading the newspaper, playing games on the iPad, and trying out new functions on our cameras.  It was a great, low-key Sunday morning. 

Knowing that we might go a little stir crazy if we didn't get out and do something, we headed up to Eagle Lake and went on a walk.  It was the perfect opportunity for me to break in my camera and go crazy.  And that I did.  I spent the entire walk several paces behind my family, peering up and down all around me for something worthy of a photo.  They often had to stop and wait for me to catch up.  I'm sure I was annoying.  It was gorgeous out - the trees couldn't have been greener or more lush.  I took probably 75+ photos during that hour, most of which I'm sure I'll delete as I'm still learning how to focus and apply the right ISO and white balance settings for the environment I'm shooting in...among other things I haven't even begun to learn.  But I had a great time and found a few cool things.

This is where I spent most of the walk - behind everyone else.  And in this case watching my sister and husband playfully duke it out about something.

Jumping picture - Take 20.  Some day we'll get it right on Take 1.

At one point, I told my family to stop and turn around.  And they did, exactly like this.  Ok, small lie, I had to have Aamir move one step to his left.  But I couldn't have planned it better.  Aren't they cute?

After our walk, we decided to play a little miniature golf.  It was fun, despite the 90+ degree weather and hot hot sun.  The course was nice and not your typical putt-putt hit the ball through the clowns mouth place. I think Aamir beat us all, but I didn't really pay attention to the scores. 

That evening we made scrumptious quesadillas, played Canasta, and watched a movie.  Somehow we were exhausted after our day of pretty relaxed entertainment.

Team KA passed us up in this last round and won.

Monday was another pretty low-key day.  We did more lounging in the morning, then went to the Original Pancake House for yummy breakfast, encountered a crazy drunk lady that kept spilling coffee everywhere, went on another walk to another park in search of turtles (and succeeded) and then back home for another game of dominoes. 

This picture makes me laugh.  They were trying to sync up to jump off the swings at the same time.  Jon jumped without notice and landed with a lovely pose for the camera, and you can see Kristen starting to yell at him. 

Playing with different focus points.  Oh, and I pretty much squashed them all in this game! 

My sister and brother-in-law had to head back east that evening, and I don't think any of us expected the weekend to go by so quickly.  But it was back to reality for all of us.  And soon to a new continent for them!

My mom, husband, and I manage to get in a quick game of Phase 10 before the day was over.  Because in life you can never really play too many games.

The weekend reminded me of how blessed I am with a wonderful family and that no matter what life may throw my way, I am one lucky girl.  Now when is the next holiday/day off??