Sweet 16
The subject refers to both an age and a speed limit. :P
I've had a busy weekend, but I'll do Saturday for now. It was my goddaughter's birthday and she is now of driving age. I doubt she's wanted to do much driving this winter, and definitely not yesterday, owing to the weather. Yes, we got more snow, and more than we thought--it wasn't supposed to start *really* snowing until later, only it started about 8:30/9 in the morning and didn't stop until after it got dark, I believe. This made the ride down to my cousin's 50% longer than normal. It already takes about an hour to get down there. And there's a notorious hill at one point if I take my normal route, so I ended up going a different way, which ended up being way better because the speed limit for much of the time was only 35 MPH, and you couldn't go much faster than that anyway.
Once there, I didn't really want to leave, and I ended up staying later than I planned. I was the only family member to show, just like last year. My aunt, who lives in the northern suburbs, wanted to wait to come until it stopped snowing--believe me, I didn't want her driving in this weather--but again it didn't stop for ages. Her other area daughter, who was estranged from my cousin for a while but has gotten back in touch, couldn't make it because she had to work. This is a good thing; like me, she'd been out of work for a while. She works with animals, with a group that brings exotics to schools and organizations and that sort of thing. It's right up her alley. Also, it turns out that one of my cousin's daughters likes to Skype with her cousin in California, daughter of my third cousin from this part of the family, and while she didn't answer we left her a video message. I have never Skyped before. Even though it was just a message, it was a little weird.
Now, my cousin has five kids; I only saw three of them for the longest time. The youngest girl was shipped off to a friend's house for much of the day to make life easier. Her son has autism and does not like parties, so he hid in his room much of the time. He did come down for about 10 minutes when the pizza was served, so it was nice to see him; he definitely does better when smaller groups are present. He's in 8th grade and is debating if he wants to attend regular high school or the special school he currently attends. My goddaughter's friend, who also attended the special school briefly, was talking to us about what she did when she entered high school and how she ended up doing half days at first to get acclimated. By the second semester she spent full days at the regular high school. It sounds like he does want to go to regular school--his mom said other autistic kids freak him out, actually--but it's not a done deal. The two oldest girls were there and hanging out; they have some of the same friends so they were all in a big group. Oddly enough, they spent much of the time playing board games of all things. I played a round of Uno with them, some played Sorry! a little later, and after that my cousin and her third daughter and I played Clue. I have never played Clue. Where has this been all my life. Hilariously enough, I actually guessed everything correctly during our second game, and like two rolls into it. However, the version they have has the mansion on one side of the game board and a boardwalk on the other. We played boardwalk first, which only has six rooms. The mansion has eight. Something about switching from the boardwalk to the mansion freaked me out and I didn't end up checking the little envelope to see if everything was right, so my cousin's daughter, the next person to go, went for it--and won. Rats. But I had a few more rounds to go and while I didn't win, I have a better handle on the game. I'll have to tell them they can invite me over to play Clue any time. My cousin-in-law was watching us (when he wasn't napping on the couch--he hadn't gotten much sleep lately) and said, you're going to go out and buy this right away, aren't you? Heh. Might be a good camp game...
Oh, and so my cousin-in-law was in charge of the pizzas, which were frozen. As soon as he'd take them out of the oven, they'd be swamped by all the girls in the house. There were four cheese and two sausage pizzas and he could only do two at a time. He did two cheese first, then one of each for the next two rounds. I'd wanted a sausage slice and finally got one, only to have my paper plate give out on me a few bites in. Let's just say I fed that slice to the floor. A short time later a couple more girls showed up, and they were asked if they wanted pizza, and the same friend as above warned them that the plates were flimsy--then looked right at me. Gee, thanks. :P Actually, she seems like a good kid, and she's been coming to these parties for a while, so we actually recognize each other. She finally asked what she should call me and I went, uh, my name? I'm not an aunt, and there's no title for cousin, so my name is fine. Back to the pizzas, my cousin's husband did the final sausage one his way. He likes them to basically look like they're burnt. This scared off most of the kids but I went, what the heck. The nice thing was that with the cheese that way, it didn't fall off the pizza. It's gravity-defying! Woo! Considering that the first sausage pizza kept losing its sausages, this was a good thing. Overall, it was a nice evening, and though I stayed way too late and drank too much generic Mountain Dew--stupid green bottle, I could have sworn you said lemon-lime on the label--it was fine. Plus, the oldest daughter and I got to talking a little bit about college. She will be going to my alma mater and had her vocal audition earlier in the day. I think she'll really enjoy it there--and I'm excited that I'll know one of the performers when I go to the Homecoming concerts for the next few years.
I've had a busy weekend, but I'll do Saturday for now. It was my goddaughter's birthday and she is now of driving age. I doubt she's wanted to do much driving this winter, and definitely not yesterday, owing to the weather. Yes, we got more snow, and more than we thought--it wasn't supposed to start *really* snowing until later, only it started about 8:30/9 in the morning and didn't stop until after it got dark, I believe. This made the ride down to my cousin's 50% longer than normal. It already takes about an hour to get down there. And there's a notorious hill at one point if I take my normal route, so I ended up going a different way, which ended up being way better because the speed limit for much of the time was only 35 MPH, and you couldn't go much faster than that anyway.
Once there, I didn't really want to leave, and I ended up staying later than I planned. I was the only family member to show, just like last year. My aunt, who lives in the northern suburbs, wanted to wait to come until it stopped snowing--believe me, I didn't want her driving in this weather--but again it didn't stop for ages. Her other area daughter, who was estranged from my cousin for a while but has gotten back in touch, couldn't make it because she had to work. This is a good thing; like me, she'd been out of work for a while. She works with animals, with a group that brings exotics to schools and organizations and that sort of thing. It's right up her alley. Also, it turns out that one of my cousin's daughters likes to Skype with her cousin in California, daughter of my third cousin from this part of the family, and while she didn't answer we left her a video message. I have never Skyped before. Even though it was just a message, it was a little weird.
Now, my cousin has five kids; I only saw three of them for the longest time. The youngest girl was shipped off to a friend's house for much of the day to make life easier. Her son has autism and does not like parties, so he hid in his room much of the time. He did come down for about 10 minutes when the pizza was served, so it was nice to see him; he definitely does better when smaller groups are present. He's in 8th grade and is debating if he wants to attend regular high school or the special school he currently attends. My goddaughter's friend, who also attended the special school briefly, was talking to us about what she did when she entered high school and how she ended up doing half days at first to get acclimated. By the second semester she spent full days at the regular high school. It sounds like he does want to go to regular school--his mom said other autistic kids freak him out, actually--but it's not a done deal. The two oldest girls were there and hanging out; they have some of the same friends so they were all in a big group. Oddly enough, they spent much of the time playing board games of all things. I played a round of Uno with them, some played Sorry! a little later, and after that my cousin and her third daughter and I played Clue. I have never played Clue. Where has this been all my life. Hilariously enough, I actually guessed everything correctly during our second game, and like two rolls into it. However, the version they have has the mansion on one side of the game board and a boardwalk on the other. We played boardwalk first, which only has six rooms. The mansion has eight. Something about switching from the boardwalk to the mansion freaked me out and I didn't end up checking the little envelope to see if everything was right, so my cousin's daughter, the next person to go, went for it--and won. Rats. But I had a few more rounds to go and while I didn't win, I have a better handle on the game. I'll have to tell them they can invite me over to play Clue any time. My cousin-in-law was watching us (when he wasn't napping on the couch--he hadn't gotten much sleep lately) and said, you're going to go out and buy this right away, aren't you? Heh. Might be a good camp game...
Oh, and so my cousin-in-law was in charge of the pizzas, which were frozen. As soon as he'd take them out of the oven, they'd be swamped by all the girls in the house. There were four cheese and two sausage pizzas and he could only do two at a time. He did two cheese first, then one of each for the next two rounds. I'd wanted a sausage slice and finally got one, only to have my paper plate give out on me a few bites in. Let's just say I fed that slice to the floor. A short time later a couple more girls showed up, and they were asked if they wanted pizza, and the same friend as above warned them that the plates were flimsy--then looked right at me. Gee, thanks. :P Actually, she seems like a good kid, and she's been coming to these parties for a while, so we actually recognize each other. She finally asked what she should call me and I went, uh, my name? I'm not an aunt, and there's no title for cousin, so my name is fine. Back to the pizzas, my cousin's husband did the final sausage one his way. He likes them to basically look like they're burnt. This scared off most of the kids but I went, what the heck. The nice thing was that with the cheese that way, it didn't fall off the pizza. It's gravity-defying! Woo! Considering that the first sausage pizza kept losing its sausages, this was a good thing. Overall, it was a nice evening, and though I stayed way too late and drank too much generic Mountain Dew--stupid green bottle, I could have sworn you said lemon-lime on the label--it was fine. Plus, the oldest daughter and I got to talking a little bit about college. She will be going to my alma mater and had her vocal audition earlier in the day. I think she'll really enjoy it there--and I'm excited that I'll know one of the performers when I go to the Homecoming concerts for the next few years.