How I Spent My Summer Vacation

 

With summer burning to a close, I took The Unnamed Ones and Lovey on a what was supposed to be a 5 day vacation to New Bern, NC.  

It was a mini-family reunion of sorts, the first all-inclusive re-gathering of the siblings and their families since Dad died two years ago. A time to visit with Mom, play in the pool, eat too much, tell stories and just enjoy each other's company.

We lasted 3 days.

Out by the pool, it was a thousand-and-one degrees.  By the time everyone got up and danced around being polite about what we really wanted to do- it was dinner time.

Then Mom broke her collarbone pulling up her pants.

Pulling. Up. Her. Pants! How do you do that?

"I don't know either," she said, looking pitiful and small in the hospital bed. "I tugged them up and there was this loud pop."

Her doctor is talking nursing home but Mom is adamantly against this idea. 

"The doctor said he was thinking of my long-term interests and what's best for my survival," she said.  "I told him so was I and I'm not going!"

Meanwhile- the cousins, faced with the heat and stuck in a retirement/timeshare community, managed to make the best of a bad situation.

They showed up for bingo...

 

Pooled their "bingo-bucks" winnings and bought themselves week-long putt-putt passes.

While the adults sat around sighing about the heat or bemoaning the state of our aging bodies, the cousins made excellent use of the condo Jacuzzi...

  

Outside they lit up the night with ferocious, water-balloon battles.

 

"Mom, really," they said later. "We did too have a good time!"