Florida Fam Fest 2009- Days 1 & 2

Florida Family Fest 2009 began Tuesday night.  I got the call around 6:30 that my bio father (from here on referred to as BF) & my Nanny (my grandmother) had arrived at my sister Sara’s house.  So I went over to Sara’s for some visiting & picture viewing.  After a couple hours Nanny was ready to go to bed.  I brought her home and set her up in our guest room.  She brought her little dog Molly with her.  So cute! She is the sweetest little dog.  She sleeps in a big Easter egg basket.  Nanny was a little worried that the pugs wouldn’t like Molly but our girls all got along just fine.  Kiki & my Molly weren’t all that interested, but Zoe fell in love.  I don’t think she’s ever met an animal smaller than she, so it was a big deal.

Yesterday Nanny & I had breakfast at my house, visited for a while then went to Sara’s for lunch.  We played some Rummikub and Phase 10.  My BIL Marc made some bbq for us for lunch.  After lunch we visited some more then Sara, Jacob, Nanny & I came back to my house.  Nanny went upstairs for a nap, Sara & Jacob played the wii, & I got dinner going.

At 4:30 the doorbell rang.  Dinner wasn’t until 6.  I was busy making the sauce for my lasagne so Sara asked if she should answer the door.  I said it was probably a solicitor (we’re a new neighborhood & have lots of those), so she could ignore it.  Well, the doorbell just kept ringing.  Sara opened the door and from the kitchen I heard a surprised “Hey!”  I came out of the kitchen to see my great Uncle Ray from Ohio!  He’s Nanny’s brother.  He was driving his 4 grandkids to Florida and was passing through Charlotte.  He punched my address into his TomTom and dropped in!  Yikes!  Now my dinner for 5 adults and 2 kids just turned into dinner for 10 adults & 2 kids!  Dear Jesus, please work your Loaves & Fishes magic!

Sara ran upstairs and got Nanny up from her nap.  My living room was suddenly very full.  I paced around my kitchen in panic mode trying to figure out how to make 1 lasagne feed 12 people!  I only had 1 box of noodles.  Luckily CSP had done the shopping for me so he bought 2 loaves of garlic bread & 3 big bagged salads.  Sara helped me out so much tonight.  Thank goodness for her!  I put her in charge of the salad.  She set up a little salad bar in my breakfast nook, putting out ingredients I didn’t even know we had. Meanwhile I pulled out another, smaller, lasagne pan.  I added some more tomatoes to the sauce to stretch it a bit and managed to make 1 big and 1 small lasagnes.

While all this was going on I had 4 teenagers to entertain.  Thank goodness for the Wii!  None of our visitors had ever played the wii so they were psyched.  Jacob- not so much.  He wasn’t thrilled to turn over his wii controller to a bunch of strangers.  But I put him to work and he loved that.  He loves to be a helper.  He did a great job setting the table and such.

Now, let me tell you about one of the teens.  His name is Dustin, he’s 18 and he looks like a younger Wentworth Miller. Sara & I felt like pervy cougars.  He was just so cute!  At one point, Tony, the other teen boy had gone on an errand right as I had set them all up to bowl on the wii.  So they needed another player.  By now it was after 6 and BF, Joey, and Marc had arrived.  Marc loves telling this story about his wife.  I said that they needed another bowler for that game.  Sara hurdled the sofa, knocked small children and the elderly out of the way Costanza style, and yelled “I’ll bowl!” as she sidled up to Dustin couger style. SO FUNNY. Marc insists that I did some eyelash batting myself.  Hmm.

Dinner was ready and thankfully CSP had helped me extend our dining room table before he went to work.  The table seats 10 and Jake & Joey ate in the living room.  So it all worked out!  The lasagne wasn’t my best work in my opinion (I’ll chalk that up to panic) but everyone enjoyed it.  After dinner Uncle Ray & the gang hit the road for Florida.  Nanny helped me clean up and she went up to bed.  I waited up to see CSP when he gets home from work.  Oh, the miracle of the night?  Even with people having second servings…we had leftovers of lasagne for CSP!  As Heidi Montag would say “Thank you Jesus”!