Family Dance

Having out of town guests is like performing a company dance.... you prepare, you choreograph, you rehearse, you clean the stage... you perform... you offer refreshments at intermission... if you are really REALLY lucky you'll have a good supporting cast.  From right to left and back again, you tip you slip you move your hip, you wrangle and wrestle and bustle about, you pack them in, and move them out.

Yes, out of town family can either be fun or disastrous.  Fortunately for me, my supporting cast is Tony worthy.  H gets MAJOR props for handling this weekend.

So on Friday my mother arrived in Richmond for a few minutes of fun with the kids.  Or, at least that's what it FELT like!  It's complicated, when your mother lives out of the country, you tend to squeeze in a visit anytime she's in the US, even when she doesn't really have time.  Poor Mom.  But she did a good job of coming up, visiting with her grandkids, her siblings, me, my H, etc and so forth, before darting back to my brother's graduation *congratulations brother on escaping ODU.

The interesting thing about THIS visit with mom, is that her sister Sara came in from CA with her husband Dan & they figured since they were on the Right Coast that they would make the trek up to RIC as well.  I like Dan.  I haven't seen him in years.  I was a Momof2 the last time we saw each other for a few hours, and the time before that - I was 17.  So, this is not a man I know that well.  Still, I liked him immediately.  Apparently Dan liked me too because he said to my mom that "other mothers should be parenting like g, her kids are SO WELL BEHAVED."

(a quick Shout Out to the Goddess of Well Behaved Children, I am pleased that you found my offering acceptable.)

But the MOST interesting this about this weekend was:  It was C's Dance recital!  These kids have only been doing Irish Step Dance for 9 months, and they pulled off the CUTEST show.  I'm trying SUPER hard to get the video I shot to upload, but so far... FAIL.  Anyway, my family all sat through a 2 hour dance recital for a 1 minute and 40 second performance!  Wow.  Well, I guess that's what differentiates family from other random strangers.  In the meantime, you will all have to settle for a photo of her in her costume while Kodak, MAC and BLOGGER all battle with eachother....  can't we all just get along?