I've been a bad blogger!

I have been duly chastened for neglecting my blog--by my youngest sister, who is one of my most loyal followers.  She was on an RV camping trip with her husband and some friends over the weekend, and she made a daily trek to the WiFi area of the campgrounds to check her Facebook and e-mails and to see if I'd posted anything new...and she was a little miffed at me for being such a slacker.  Okay, I admit it: I've been a bad blogger.  A bad, bad blogger.  I should go to the corner and think about what I've done, like the poor little sweetie in this painting.  (It's titled "In Disgrace," and it's by one of my all-time favorite illustrators, Besse Pease Gutmann.)

I love this painting!  That little girl's body, with those cute little arms and legs, reminds me of my 14-month-old identical twin granddaughters, who were here last week for the wedding/Pearl family reunion but left on Sunday at the stroke of midnight--so that they could sleep during the car trip to NYC, where they were due to catch a flight with their mommy and daddy early Monday morning.  They are currently on their way westward to their new home in Colorado.  (And now, try to guess where Grammy is headed in the not-too-distant future...)

Life has been unbelievably busy lately around these parts.  If you read my last few posts, you know that I've been staying at my husband's childhood home along with an enormous group of family members.  On Saturday, my niece got married--and all eight of the Pearl siblings (my husband is #2 out of the eight), their spouses, and most of their children, along with an assortment of dogs, girlfriends, boyfriends, etc., were living on top of each other in the family homestead and the house next door, which belongs to my husband's older sister.  Out of the 32 first cousins who were brought into this world by the eight Pearl sibs, 30 were able to make it.  Only two who had military commitments--a niece on Navy deployment and a nephew at his freshman Navy ROTC orientation at Notre Dame--were missing.  It was one big (really big) happy family around here.

Getting that many members of the family together at the same time is quite a feat!  And it creates a lot of garbage that needs to be taken to the dump!  And it generates a lot of dirty laundry (mostly towels) that must be washed and folded and put away!  My husband and I, who have the luxury of living relatively close-by and didn't have to pack up in a hurry on the Sunday or Monday following the festivities to catch a flight or drive cross-country like most of the rest of the clan, have been slowly getting things back in order before we take off for home this morning.  But we don't mind at all.  It's given us a chance to enjoy the lake for just a little bit longer before we head back to the nest--which is empty once again, now that our youngest son is already settled back at college.

Where does the time go, anyway?  During the wedding there was a wonderful slide show, and seeing all those old photographs of the bride when she was just a wee thing, surrounded by all of her little Pearl cousins (including my sons, who are grown men now)...well, it just broke me up.  I was sitting there at the wedding reception weeping--but they were happy tears.  We all have such great memories, and so many of them are tied in with this house by the lake--the house where my husband grew up and where our sons spent many lazy summer days forging incredibly strong bonds with their cousins.

I'm rambling here (sorry about that--I'm just so tired!), so I'd better end this.  But am I out of the doghouse now, baby sister?  Am I forgiven?  Can I come out of the corner, or am I still in disgrace?