Good friends

It is always a wonderful thing when you can get people you love and respect all in one room, talking to one another.

So we managed, despite Nic and breakdowns (appointments with ped and neuro pending), timing, food, personality clashes among the young ones, and other fun stuff. K & A and clan surfaced directly from the shore around 4, with C & J following about an hour later and Fr M appearing about an hour after that.

I didn't have the wherewithal to moderate the conversation until we all sat down to dinner, but Fr M took a minute at the beginning of the meal to check in with me to see how I was doing. I spent a lot of the meal wondering if I oversold him to my friends, but as the evening wore on, it was evident that everyone else sees the same things I see, which is awesome.

The boys all played outside before dinner, sharing Nic's bike and scooter. M even got out our old tractor and had G working on his peddling up and down the street--a first, which cements what I already know, peer pressure can work in positive ways. J did a great job of keeping an eye on little A, K&A's almost two-year-old.

Dinner conversation flowed, peppered with funny stories about late-night infomercials, occupational hazards and observations about human nature. I just sat back and marveled a few times at how amazingly everyone connected with one another.

It was a seriously good meal. And grillmaster DH outdid himself.

We reluctantly broke up around 10:30, but the last words from K & A was that they wanted us all up on their turf, and to check with Fr M about his availability.

YEAH.

As for Nic and the meltdowns, I have a month and a half before school starts to find out what's going on and fix it.

But the clock is running.