Christina and her mom have decided to co-host a party each year and have decided to use the Summer Solstice as the reason for the event.  Therefore, from Saturday morning until after dinner Sunday, I had the pleasure (curse?) of dealing with the rare but always eventful family visit.  My mom, grandmother, my sister Erin and her boyfriend, and my sister Amye with her two daughters Abigail and Samantha, crashed my house from Saturday morning through Sunday evening.  As always, there was always some sort of drama occurring but overall, it was a great weekend.  We spent most of our downtime playing Wii Sports, Wii Fit, or BoomBlox — all that much more fun when playing with a big crowd.  My niece Abigail loves the Wii and is actually pretty good at it.  My grandmother even showed us up in some of the games with her newfound skills.  

The party itself was an interesting but successful affair with a mix of Christina’s friends, her parent’s friends, and my friends.  For whatever reason, my family left early but said they had a good time and promised to come back for the one next year.  Christina Jr, Jason & Angela’s daughter, was quite the hit and found it very amusing to bring everyone bread rolls and sing Lion King songs to me over and over again.

Contrary to most every other time with my family where we never get a consensus on something to do and end up doing nothing at all, we actually got everyone interested in going to the National Zoo and spent the afternoon down in DC.  We took the Metro in but the walking got to my grandmother and I ended up wheeling her around the zoo in a wheelchair.  Truth is, I believe the walking got to most of my family.  They’re a crazy bunch in that they always suggest we go into DC and visit the monuments and museums and yet, they hate to walk around.  I think it’s the constant stopping to go to the bathroom, get something to eat, shop, etc, that drains on them.  As soon as we stop for one person to go the bathroom, the next person is hungry and we stop to get them something to eat.  At that point, someone has gotten tired of waiting and has wandered into a gift shop or gone to get something to eat themselves.  It’s an endless cycle that makes any trip five times slower than I would take alone or with Christina (who’s quite the “stopper” herself).  After visiting the first few exhibits, various family members were suggesting we go home and soon enough, we did just that.  A quick Metro ride home (w/o seats!) and dinner at Outback to satisfy Erin, my family took off.