Scenes from an amusement park ... and the comfort of childhood memories.

What can I say about the photos? Nothing I can come up with does such fun justice. This is from that hot day a few weeks ago ... about which I wrote endless sappy words - reminisced about my own childhood with my cousins - oh ... and more - you know it ;-).

Last night - mass and dinner with my Dad's family (some of them the lovely cousins, aunts, uncles, etc. who went to the amusement park with us :-) - also had a nice time with my brothers, my brother's girlfriend, my nephew, my mom). I miss my Dad so much. I miss so many of the wonderful people - his cousins, aunt and uncles, etc. (not to mention my grandparents) - with whom we spent many a Christmas Eve - many an Easter Sunday. I used to call one of our regular Christmas Eve stops the "house of food and hugs" - endless kielbasa and turkey sandwiches, spiked drinks, homemade nutroll, pierogies, sweet bread with raisins, spicy meatballs, cabbage rolls, pumpkin pie ... and, of course, the endless questions about school, the quick pats on the leg, the comments about how grown or how pretty I had become, kisses on both cheeks... Sweet, sweet people. I loved seeing them all last night - and... like I said, missed the ones no longer with us (seems to be a theme for me lately). Anyway - a good time....

And - today - we hit Ohiopyle to acclimate the boys (and Lil) to one of hubby's favorite past times (something he did with his Dad as a kid) - fishing. Olivia was already at a sleepover with her new high school friends, which makes us happy (so could NOT get up to fish today - OMG - eyeroll). So... we fished - we sat in the sun - we jumped from rock to rock - we slipped into the water - we checked out the white water and the arts festival there - we hiked a bit - picnicked, and.... just like at the block party, I missed Olivia - started down that "things used to be so different" road and, this time, I kept on going down it. No stopping, as I did at the block party, to say - "well - she no longer helps with the bike race, so I will next year - pass the mantle to the next child in line". No. This time, I just missed her. Remembered when we used to skip rocks, hike, picnic and fish with just her. Felt that she needed to be there to show the boys the ropes - how to swim in a chilly river - how to coerce mommy and daddy into tourist trinkets - how to do a mountain water slide properly ;-). So... one quick phone call later to tell her that she would come next time - one happy response that she would be delighted to, and... I was happy. One stop at a roadside bbq joint where hubby ate brisket at lightening speed, only stopping now and then to roll his eyes and point fiercely and our ornery children, and I jumped up and down, serving pizza, fries, popcorn and Coke to our wild ones, delighted with dinosaur stickers and stories of all their "fish that got away" - and... we were on our way home.

Tired now. Enjoy your holiday weekend :-).