For several years now, Tad has been on call over Easter weekend.  This means rather than traveDscn0470ling to South Carolina to join the rest of his family for an annual gathering, we celebrate in Tennefreakinssee.  We have several friends here who don’t have other relatives in town, so we pool our culinary prowess, cook up a mighty fine lunch, and enjoy the simple pleasure of fellowship around our family alter…our dining room table. 

Of course, afterwards, stuffed, getting the children–and ourselves–outside is not up for debate–it’s necessary!  I’m always thankful for sunny Easter Sundays, aren’t you?

As the oldest children, Rachel and Thomas no longer hunt eggs, but the DO get to hide them; I’m pretty sure they have just as much fun doing this as the seven younger children do in finding them.

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Looks like Ryan found one whale of an egg there!   There were a bunch more cutie-pie pictures of Wendy’s and Jay’s, and Steph’s and Chas’ babies, but I didn’t get their permission to post them.

Once the eggs-travaganza was over, the little girls twirled in the hammock, the little boys played basketball, and the big boys and girls hung out.  The kids dragged the pogo stick out, but no, I didn’t show off my pogo-jumping skills….

I’m not quite how the following occurred, but I think it had something to do with Chas schooling my boys in the finer points of ball handling.  After a “swoosh” I’m thinking Steph said “Show her how you can touch your toes.” 

Not easily impressed, I’m thinking Chas is six years younger than me, he SHOULD be able to touch his toes!  Uh, huh, yeah, well, I was slightly misguided.  THIS is what she meant:


This was his first attempt to “touch his toes” and my first attempt to photograph him.  The subsequent tries didn’t yield near this good of a shot (although he repeated the action multiple times). 
Not to be outdone (WHAT WAS I THINKING??), I marched upstairs, got a pair of tennis shoes, and came back out.  For heaven’s sake, I was a cheerleader in highschool, took ballet for ten years, surely I was still limber enough to match his toe-touchin’ skills.

Um, yeah, wrong again.  Apparently, when I cooked the turkey, I fried my brain, too.  I cannot believe I’m about to show ANYONE (who wasn’t present) these pictures.  They aren’t pretty, but they are funny. 

Wait…first, my boys!  Thomas and Stephen thought it looked easy (s i g h, the arrogance of youth…:/).  Thomas actually did impress me–while simultaneously reminding me I forgot their haircut appointments on Saturday :(.

  Stephen should stick to soccer.

And, now, me…

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Good gracious, I look like one of the flying monkeys from “The Wizard of Oz”!

Let’s try again.

Is anyone else thinking “The Bride of FrankensteinDscn0556“?

What if I stretch some more?  SeDscn0552e?  If I can kick my leg this high, jumpin’ and touchin’ my toes should be a piece of cake (maybe I was sabotaged by Steph’s FANTASTIC carrot cake she made in honor of the day…maybe all this was a conspiracy, cooked up by her and Charles to make him look like a gymnast and me look like a freak show…).

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Look at that expression!  I AM a freak show!!

Personally, this is what I think:

1)  Chas purposefully took the shots AFTER I hit the mark…

2)  HE didn’t have to worry about wettin’ his britches…I mean…I’ve had three kids…the third one wreaked havoc on my pelvic floor…I was having to concentrate on a lot of other things than just touching my toes. 

At least I succeeded in that.  That was MY sad little “thrill of victory”. 

Now, I’m just feeling the “agony of defeat”. 

Remember that episode of “Cheers” when Sam was a guest sports broadcaster for a local newsstation and he was AWFUL?  He tried everything from ventriloquism to rap? That little rap keeps trilling through my mind….

“Time to rap about a controversy / Gonna take a stand, won’t show no
mercy / Lotta folks says jocks shouldn’t be / Doing the sports new on
TV / I don’t wanna hear the latest scores / From a bunch broadcast
school boys / So get your scores from a guy like me / Who knows what
it’s like to have a groin injury. G-g-groin, g-g-groin injury.”

** s i g h** g-g-groin injury….:/

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