Thinking about traveling and family and stuff

I’m planning a trip to go see family in the very near future.  Justin and I are heading to the Barnett Family Reunion up near Des Moines, Iowa.  And since we’ll be within about 6 hours of my grandmas, we’re also hoping to spend some time with at least one of them.

I’m really excited for both of these encounters.  My exposure to the Barnett family has been pretty limited so far.  It’s been notable, to be sure—Grandpa Doug cut in on our first dance at our wedding, something that makes me laugh every time I think about it.  I guess after you’ve lived long enough, there are some social situations that simply don’t seem to apply anymore.  But most of my time spent with Justin’s family has been with people from his mother’s side of the family.  I’m really looking forward to seeing what it’s like on the other side of the tree.  My understanding is that we’re going to be spending the weekend at the family farm, sleeping in a trailer that’s been brought on site for a handful of us, while several other people sleep in the barn on cots.  It’s going to be interesting!

The other part of the trip is going to be spent with my paternal grandmother, and my maternal grandmother if she’ll see us.  I haven’t seen my paternal grandma since, I think, 2004, when she came up for my sister’s graduation.  I haven’t seen my other grandma since . . . I’m not even sure.  It’s probably been more than 10 years.

I started writing about memories that I have of each of my grandmas and, well, when I hit the third page of writing, I thought that maybe I shouldn’t put all of that up in one post.  So, if I can manage it, I’m going to write about some memories that I have of my grandparents over the next couple days.  Which makes this a post about a post that’s not up yet, and those are always frustrating.  “You’re telling me you’re going to tell me something but you’re not actually telling me anything?!”

So . . . um . . .well, the weather’s been pleasant.  It’s hot during the day, but the mornings are nice.  Last night, I got home from work and Justin and I went grocery shopping to replace things like bread and milk that were emptied out while his family was in town.  He went home to put the food away and I went to Zumba and had a blast shaking my booty.  And then I came home, showered, and went downstairs to make banana bread out of the bananas going bad on the counter.  I have no idea if it turned out because I put walnuts in there and they don’t cooperate with me.  And then I made sautéed apples with some of the many apples in bowls in the kitchen.  I used 8 of them (they’re really little) but I think we still have 8 left.  The ones I cooked turned out really yummy, though.  They’re like the apples you can get from Cracker Barrel.  Not great on calories, but ooooooh, so good.  And Justin made pancakes that nearly exploded with fluffiness.  Our only explanation is that he opened a new container of baking powder and the old one must have been really old.

And now I’m hungry.  Great.

Hey, does your calendar say “Juneteenth” on the 19th, too?  Apparently it’s actually a pretty significant holiday (in 36 states) but I’d never heard of it.  Have you?