Dear readers, it has been a snake's age since I have updated this blog. As life with two growing children gets more hectic, my poor blog has become a bit neglected. I will try to update more consistantly, I promise. In the mean time, I have my recent trip to NJ to tell you about.
I flew solo to NJ this past Saturday so that I could attend a memorial dinner/ reunion my sister was hosting in honor of our beloved mom, Crazy Nell. As most of you know, we lost our mother to cancer and Jen planned the reunion to fall on November second, the tenth anniversary of mom's passing. There was no way I would not attend.
So, Jen picked me up on Saturday afternoon at Newark airport. We went back to Jen's place after taking a rather round about route home...(Jen missed our exits we were so busy laughing already) We were not home too long, when we happened to look outside and see the gas BBQ grill was literally lit up like a bonfire. After some rushing around and some singed arm hair, the problem was taken care of.
Jen informed me that we were going to a halloween party that evening. The party was going to be attended by many people that I had known my whole life growing up in NJ, so I was geared up to go. Luckily, most of my clothing is black (when the hell did I become a goth chick?) so I just threw together a black skirt, black leggings, black shirt, black boots and of course, a black webbed cape'y thing. Yes, I had packed all of that into my carry on luggage. I then put my hair up with a plastic bottle inside of it to help it stand straight up. I was about 6 and a half feet tall and I was ready to party.
The party was fun. It's always amazing to see people that you have known a long time. One of the highlights of the evening was when a friend walked in dressed as a "SHAMWOW". Yes, it's true. He won best costume. I actually won a prize as well..."honorable mention". In all honesty, I think I received the best prize. While the other prizes were all plastic trophies, my prize was a bottle of red wine. PERFECT!! We left somewhat early since the next day was the dinner party for mom and Jen was expecting over 65 people.
The following morning, Jen awoke to a power outage, and her whole kitchen floor covered in turkey drippings. She had set the turkey in the oven the night before and timed it to turn on at 7am. During the night, the juices leaked out of the foil roasting pan and dripped all over the bottom of the oven and out onto the kitchen floor. It then caught on fire when the oven turned on. Luckily, Jen is a light sleeper and came down before the entire kitchen was engulfed in flames. (I was actually thinking I should go stay at a holiday inn or aomething since she had two fires in less that 8 hours.) The electricity being off is not that big of a deal for my sister and her husband. Jeff is a very handy, handsome survivalist. He just hooked up the generator and "whaa-la" we were cooking.
The guests started arriving at 1pm. It was awesome to see everyone. My dad, uncles, aunts, and cousins. My siblings and their families. Jon's mom, brothers and their families came also. Friends of my mother's also attended. Basically anyone who had enjoyed the company and love of my mom came to celebrate her life and legacy. And what a legacy...there are now ten grandchildren between my siblings. Actually, there were so many kids at this party that we were thankful the weather was beautiful so the kid's could play outside. There were TWENTY FOUR children at this thing with the oldest being 11 and the youngest being 1. Anyway, I got to reconnect with some family members, meet some young relatives for the first time, and laugh my ass off. We enjoyed a wonderful slideshow that Jen had put together. Dawn and her mom showed up and it was a blast. Everyone who attended had a wonderful story or memory of mom to share. The house was filled with laughter and love.
A very fitting way to celebrate mom's life.