Thanksgiving: Almost Heaven

I wanted to write up something for the day after Thanksgiving itself, but we were in the Ohio wilderness without wifi, so that wan't an option. Thus, you get this too-late post instead.

The Mollmanns once again converged on a state park for their Thanksgiving festivities. Next year will be the fiftieth anniversary, so it's quite the tradition at this point. This year, fifty-one Mollmanns were in attendance across the four days (though I think peak attendance at any one time was forty-eight), with just four not present! Apparently no one keeps track of such things, but it surely must be a record, since there never were enough Mollmanns for so many to be there before. This includes my grandmother, her children and their spouses, their children and their spouses, and their children. Four generations. There were eighteen of the nineteen great-grandchildren!

We stayed in a cabin with my immediate family; the Mollmann Clan as a whole occupied six different cabins, each with three or four or more bedrooms, I believe. We did the usual: some small hikes, three-ways for dinner, a hot dog roast, and the recitation of "Country Roads." I was glad to spend some time with my family; our kids had a blast. Son One always complains about hikes but usually ends up being pretty keen once actually underway; he and Uncle Andy did some good rock-climbing and exploring. Son Two was the littlest Mollmann who completed the hikes under his own power for most of the way. (He did have some help from Aunt Cat, though.)

We didn't manage to snag a photo of our own family; things somehow always seemed to be going on. Getting there was an adventure—for Hayley. Because I had to teach Monday, but she didn't, and because she wanted to see her mother, who lives in the same general area as Mollmann Thanksgiving, she flew out with the kids Saturday by herself, while I flew in Tuesday. But things seemed to go fine for her. Getting home was a bit of an adventure, when our connecting flight was delayed a bit, and we didn't even take off until 10:15pm, well past the kids' usual bed time. But we did make it, and they fell asleep about ten seconds into the car ride home, and thankfully even slept in Sunday.

Things were a bit of a mess before the trip. The dishwasher and the dryer had both been broken, and we still haven't quite got back on track from the disarray created by packing in such an environment. It is now, of course, the end of the semester, the worst time to do anything.

Yet I am always glad of these trips, and they always make me wistful for home and family. "Take me home... to the place... I BELONG!"