Tethered

Saturday we celebrated my grandma's 90th birthday with a party.  It was a lovely day.  I went early to help set up and decorate.  My mom said I was being bossy and my cousins, Will and Homer, teased me about my bossiness.  (I was telling them to put things there...no there...no, there.) 

What can I say?  Decorating brings out the bossiness in me.  Ask my children who have moved 10 million pieces of furniture in their young tender lives.

It was fun though.

I took zero pictures but Emma took this picture of my grandma and me:

I posed for several other pictures and probably look terrible in them so I will look at Facebook in apprehension for the next little while.

I did find this on Facebook and it's pretty much perfect.

That's Morgan, Enoch and me, behind the flowers.  I should carry a bouquet of flowers around at all times for pictures.  It boosts my photogenic capacity.

At the party I enjoyed seeing cousins and aunts and uncles and catching up a little with them.  There were a lot of little kids running around and Marianne and I, the two oldest grandchildren, commented on how much we love not having little kids running around anymore.

It makes social gatherings more enjoyable.

I met my Grandpa Dahl's first cousin.  Apparently she grew up with my Grandma Jaynes.  (My family tree does not branch very much, geographically speaking.)  My siblings and I had lined up to meet her and later I heard her tell someone she had met "all the Dahls."  Not quite, but she had met several....

I saw some of my mom's cousins as well as one of her aunts.  I saw Nene and Andrew Knudsen.  I introduced Emma to them and pointed out to her that the Knudsen family were our Jorgensens.  "Ohhh," Emma said knowingly.

Nene asked, "Do you have a redhead?  I saw a tall kid walking around and I thought, he looks like he belongs to Thelma."

I love that there are people in the world that know me well enough to think Mark must belong to me.

When I was working in the kitchen, an elderly woman stopped by to ask about the lemon drink we were serving.  My mom hightailed it off to find out the recipe for her (my aunt Mary had made it) and I stayed to chat with the woman.  She leaned heavily on her cane and asked me how I was related.  I introduced myself as Thelma which always gives me street cred with my grandma's friends.  I said,  "I am her granddaughter."

She said, "Well you are very lucky."

I said, "Thank you and I know."

Being the granddaughter of Thelma Louise Wood Jaynes makes me about the luckiest person I know.