On Thursday I was super blessed to get off work early. When I rolled into work at 10:00, my coworker told me he was going to get off at noon and that I'd probably get off early as well. Not too long after that, the head librarian told me I could have the option of going to one of the other libraries on campus and doing busy work for them or I could use some of my vacation time and go home early. So I took less than a millisecond to decide to go home early. I called Megan and let her know I'd be home before she would. We were both kind of excited because it would mean we could leave a little earlier for the family reunion.
The funny thing that happened on Thursday was that we completely failed to get out of town until 9:00. I was doing a complete overhaul on this laptop. I deleted partitions, formatted, repartitioned, and then went through the joy of installing both operating systems and various drivers and utilities. It took a little while to get it all done, but I was done well before Megan and I got out of town. I was packed and even loaded my stuff into the car. Megan was basically ready to go front he minute she got home, but somehow we didn't manage to get out of town until 9:00. We have no idea where the time went other than dropping Turbo off at the sitters (big ups to Shannon and BJ for taking care of our little guy).
So we had a fairly uneventful journey over to the Elks Youth Camp near Young, which has been the location for the Badger family reunion for the past few years. It was uneventful except for the fact that I hit my 5th bird this year. So far this year I've killed 3 birds with my car and hit 5 in total. Before this year I had never hit a bird before and now I can't avoid them. I feel like George Costanza when the deal is off with the pigeons. Also, we had an extremely close encounter with three deer that froze up in our headlights as we rounded a corner on a narrow mountain road. Had I been going faster I would have definitely committed multiple acts of vehicular animacide. So aside from nearly killing several animals on the way, it was an uneventful trip.
We had a fun time at the reunion. Megan has become the favorite aunt in a very short amount of time because she made balloon animals for all the kids. So good luck to the rest of the aunts who can't do balloon twisting or face painting. I think Megan is a mortal lock for favorite aunt for life. So there you have it. I also bolstered my favorite uncle status by letting the kids play Nintendo games on my laptop.
There were all sorts of fun things at the family reunion and I'd be hard pressed to remember them in chronological order. But just suffice it to say that we had a lot of fun. Of course there were things that were not so fun, which just of the top of my head would probably include Paul hitting my wife in the face with a baseball. It's kind of a funny story. So the story starts with Paul and I playing catch. I hadn't played catch in 10 years or so, so it was kinda nice to be throwing a baseball again. I was just impressed that I could still throw with any speed or degree of accuracy. So as things went on, Paul and I started to bring the heat. We really started to sling that ball back and forth. All this while we had nieces and nephews walking back and forth trying to hit the ball and whatnot. The ball was zooming over their head and they miraculously managed to not get hit. So as it was getting dark and dinner was almost ready, Paul and I decided that we would each throw the ball 10 more times and then we'd pack it in. All this while, we had been throwing each other pop flies, fastballs, and pretending to do turnaround throws to first. So as we're throwing we're also moving around a little. I was always a little worried when Paul was throwing when my wife and mother were sitting right behind me. I was worried I'd miss the ball and they'd get hit. But we're counting down the last 10 pitches and we get down to the very last throw of the night and I'm standing just to the right of where my Mom and Megan were sitting. Paul threw a pitch that went a little low and outside. I couldn't get a glove on the ball, but it didn't look like it would hit anybody. Then the bottom falls out of the pitch and it hits a rock, sending it right into Megan's face nailing her right in the lip. She got a really bad bloody and swollen lip. She said it didn't really hurt, which is a good thing, but she did get the benefit of getting anything she wanted from Paul just by pouting her swollen lip a little. So yeah, that's the story of the baseball and the face.
Also, Megan and I caught a couple lizards. One minute I was talking about how I was too old and slow to catch lizards and the next I'm crawling with lizards. Seriously, there was one lizard I didn't see at first and I almost stepped on it, but then it jumped onto my shoe and started climbing up my leg. Megan and I caught two lizards in under a half hour. It reminded me of back when I was a kid and every summer I would catch lizards and horny toads and sell them to other kids in the neighborhood. Anyway, check out these awesome lizard pictures:
On Saturday we packed it up and headed over to St. Johns because on Sunday Lynnette was having her non-farewell. Megan and I got our own room in my parents' house for the first time ever, which was kind of nice. We were relaxing on our bed taking a nap as we could hear the commotion of nieces and nephews running up and down the hall just outside our door, but we had our little oasis of calm.
While we were in St. Johns, Megan and I broke out the cribbage board we just bought. I had never played and Megan hadn't played for quite a while, so we were kind of excited to add another old people game to our repertoire. Now we just need to learn Pinochle and Whist and we can start hustling people in retirement homes. I won the first game of cribbage, which means I like the game now. I lost the next two, but one of those losses was on a technicality, so it might as well not be a loss at all. But I think I'm a bona fide fan of cribbage now, so that's good. I'm getting a good head start on getting old. I think I'll have a fitting for some chest-high plaid pants and I'll cash in my skater shoes for some deck shoes. And speaking of deck shoes, I should probably pick up shuffleboard. I don't have the opportunity to get into a curling league, so I think shuffleboard will be next.
Lynnette gave a good talk at her non-farewell and Ben Brown gave a good non-homecoming talk. I also got to see some people I hadn't seen for a while. Mikie Prentice was home from his mission. That was kinda funny because the last I saw him he was a crazy 10 year old kid who was maybe a little too hyper for his own good and now he's an RM. I guess I'm a little old.
Anyway, going from the family reunion to the non-farewell was a little like having two separate weekends back to back. It felt great to not be at work for a while, but it was weird to not be at home for a long time because up until we left for the reunion we had been house sitting. So we left the same day our house sitting gig was over and instead of going home after the reunion we went to St. Johns. Now we're home for a few days and we'll be right back to house sitting and then we'll be heading to Denver for Jen and Justin's wedding. So it feels like we aren't going to be home for a while, which I guess comes from the fact that we won't be home for a good deal of time this month.
So here's another little tidbit before I close this up. Well, maybe I'll give two tidbits. First of all, I haven't really read this post as I've been writing it. I actually haven't been paying much attention to myself and I have no idea what I might have said. So if none of this has made sense thus far, that's why. Secondly, I just got a call from a member of our stake presidency. They want me to come into the stake offices tomorrow and get a calling. I have to say I'm a little scared. I don't know if it's a calling for Megan and I or if it's just a calling for just me. In the voice mail it sounded a little more like Megan and I were both getting callings, but this morning he was setting up the appointment with me and at the end he said, "Oh, and bring your wife with you." So I don't know if this will be a calling for just me or for both Megan and I. Either way, I've never had a stake calling and I have no idea how the stake presidency knows to look us up. Our records were just read into the ward two weeks ago, so I dunno. Watever the calling is, I'll do it, but I have to admit I'm a little scared. So there you have it: all the news that is news.