person eleven, kinda sorta

As I told the running bear,
"Thank you for taking me to the bookmine. I don't know that I would have been brave enough to come here today without that trip."
I had only been in Hinesville for maybe fifteen minutes when he had texted, just long enough to tell everyone hi and get hugs.
Good timing!
Hope he noticed that I wore the shirt that he gave me this year!

Michael took the top photo for me, so props to him!
I took this one of the four little girl cousins - Leila, Alyssa, Miyah, and Chloe - playing on the impromptu water slide.
Spraying the hot slide with water kept it from burning anyone, plus made it lots more fun!
Adding the wading pool at the bottom had seemed like a good idea, but didn't really work out.
All had fun, so that's what mattered!

In the above photo, you could see Chris manning the grill, churning out all manner of barbequed meats and even some veggies.
Here he is in a close-up, throwing a big batch of shrimp on the barbie - oh, yeah!
In the background is the dining tent, meant for us grown-ups to inhabit when meal time arrived.
Sadly, the we never had the chance.
The flies were fierce today, so the kids had the tent, though the flies were as plentiful inside it as outside.

Not to worry!
Christina was ready to go hunting and flies were the target, wanted dead, not alive!
That's a salt rifle she's toting and it was pretty good at blasting the pests, but there were just... so... many.
There was no way to thin the herds outside, but she was able to keep the pesky vermin at bay indoors.
Well, to an extent, at least.
(smile!)

And just what did the flies want?
Everything on this plate - my first one! - and more!
Burger, Melinda's baked beans, mac-n-cheese, watermelon bites and apple slices, grilled shrimp, grilled squashes, my apple cake, Boston butt, and, of course, that grilled hotdog - those flies wanted it for their memorial Day feast!
Well, nothin' doin', flies!
That food is mine... well, mine and Chloe's, as she ate part of it.

That little girl is growing like a weed.
Not only is she walking now, and doing pretty good at ti, but she's also trying to read!
She would flip the page and babble, babble, babble, then flip to the next page and repeat.
Bless her heart, she was determined to tell us the story!
She is such a sweet-tempered child, too, so it was easy to spend an hour or so with her in the tent.

Here's Michael and Christina, during our conversation about shapes and sizes of noses and whose noses looked like who else's, with Melinda and Matt and Chris chiming in.
I, of course, brought up the pinging... and then let the topic go.
But the talk I most liked was in the kitchen with Christina and her mom, putting food away, enjoying each other's company.
Plus, I got two packages of grilled low country boil and ten shrimp to carry home!

Somehow, it was suddenly 7 PM!
Time to say my goodbyes, gather those last lingering hugs, and set Nuvi to chart a course for home, chasing daylight along the way.
The odometer read 212855 as I was pulling out of the yard, after one last hug from my first niece, who'd thought I was leaving without telling her goodbye - as if that would, or even could, ever happen!
Now, the odometer has 212902 as my car is safely home again.

The is 8:30 PM now and I am safely home, after soaking in love all day -
I am so very relaxed!
Now, for a tall cool glass of vanilla milk, with the sound of fireworks all over the 'hood...
Cheers, y'all!
I'm going to watch "The LEGO Movie" and call it an early night!
I am so very blessed that Christina and I have an open telepathic channel -
like Mama and I had...
i thank You, God.