Old Friend Bookends

In a classic comedy of errors, our plans to get together with Amanda (my best friend since 5th grade) and her husband Chris were thwarted and delayed, but we finally worked things out just before we had to fly back to France. It was our year to go to Memphis, but I just wasn't feeling one more leg of the road trip smushed into our scant two and a half weeks, so they were kind enough to come see us in St Louis this year.

Four people is the bare minimum you need for the Game of Things, but as you can see, it's enough to get the hilarity ball rolling.

Happy Birthday, Xenia!

Our niece Xenia's second birthday fell during our Thanksgiving trip, so we celebrated Sunday, after we returned to St Louis.



Afterwards, the boys were very pleased to have an early Christmas with gifts from aunts and uncles.

Back to St Louis

Saturday morning we rejoiced (again, as we have every year since college or so) in the fact that we no longer have to get up at the crack of dawn with my parents to drive back to St Louis. We did set our alarm to get up, but we packed up our things, had a leisurely breakfast, said goodbye to everyone, and only dashed into the car to take off when the downpour didn't want to hold off any longer.

It rained pretty much the whole way back to St Louis.

In between rainshowers, I got a few from-the-car pictures of what the French would call "deep America." (Which loosely translates to "provincial," with the same possible but not necessarily obligatory negative connotations.)

We drove over Lake Texoma.

I meant to print some of these off and show them to Benjamin's class.

But, jet lag. I think that shall be my new excuse for everything.

I could always print them next year, and pretend they were from next year's trip.

One of these days, we will have to stop and check out one of the myriad flea markets.

We wanted to buy this truck and bring it back, but it would have put us over our luggage allowance.

More Madill

Despite the lousy weather (the weathermen had promised us all high 60s and sun, but we wound up with chilly gray skies instead, booo), we made my little brother take some family pictures for us down at the playground.

And Uncle Vance taught the boys how to play washers.

And of course, we continued our traditional games with the Game of Things, Quiddler, Five Crowns, Say Anything, and Phase 10.

The two and a half days we spend down seem to go by much faster these days than when we were kids. Wish we could slow them down!

Madill, Oklahoma

On Wednesday afternoon, we headed for our Mecca of Thanksgiving: Madill, Oklahoma. For the past thirtyish years, our family has rented out a camp for our family reunion at Thanksgiving, and the tradition continues on. We now have four generations attending since all the grandkids are having kids!

I continued to play with the camera on the way down.

Sadly, I don't have any of the fish story pictures, but here is the fish story... Frédéric, the boys, their cousin Alex, and my grandad went to the (now greatly depleted) pond to go fishing. Frédéric caught an 8-pound catfish, but only had a 10-pound line. He and the fish fought it out for a while, until he managed to get it up near his feet. 

Grandad Crowe reached in to try to pull the fish up, but the fish pulled back and Grandad fell in the pond. At this point, the boys decided fishing was not for them anymore! 

Now, if you ask Noah how big the fish that got away was, he stretches out his arms as wide as he can. If you ask Benjamin, he tells you it was "21." 

Noah tried his skill at hurling sticks into the pond.

He and Uncle Curtis looked in awe at the one he got to land straight up.

 

Xenia looks on as her brother and cousin play washers.