44 hours of rare family time: the next 16

My family's whirlwind weekend together, celebrating my mother's retirement, included plenty of time for indulgence, silliness, memories and good-natured gluttony.
Lauryn was on hand for most of the silliness:

There was plenty of time for hot tea, conversation and even a few hands of cards.

The memories came courtesy of a trip to my grandparents' house (which deserves its own post) and a box that had been stored in the basement for 12 years. It was labeled: "art projects and clippings, R, M, V needs to be sorted!"

And boy oh boy did it need to be sorted! Many of these art projects (done by the 3 sisters -- R, M and V) had survived two major moves. Starting in the Midwest (during the Regan administration), and moving 1000 miles to the east, before being moved back to the Midwest (during the Clinton administration.)

As you can imagine, the items we found in this box were priceless -- they left us roaring with laughter, ah-ha-ing with memories long since forgotten, and a few pieces even brought tears.
If nothing else, it was a confirmation that who we were as children would be cemented in fact, as we became adults. The personality traits were obvious in the art projects, newspaper clippings and letters we wrote as children. It provided lots of giggles.

The gluttony came in the form of my mother's wonderful cooking, and a tasty cake we had picked up for the first mother's day we had celebrated together since probably 1991.

I was the worst offender with the cake -- I think I had a piece after breakfast, lunch and supper. Sigh.

The 44 hours went far to quickly, but they were filled with enough memories to last the 6-8-12 months before we see each other again.