A Labor Day Dvorin Extravaganza In Chico

Biiiiiiiiiiiig sigh, as I plop down here in my comfy writing chair (the big black Eames chair I inherited from my Poppa) at the end of a long, long day. I'm back from a long weekend of swirly curly chaos at my brother and sister-in-law's new house in Chico, during which our heroine (that's me) battled the forces of fatigue, phlegm, and family craziness and emerged, once again, victorious (and also very very glad of the life and the nuclear family that I have). It was a sort of combination of housewarming and my niece Zinnia's 3rd birthday party, so my parents carpooled up in the minivan with us and my sister-in-law's parents, sister and nephew also showed up, and we had a weekend full of activity. The kids got to swim and run around and play with each other (Eli once again experienced both the joy and the frustration inherent in his idolization of his older cousin). We went to a very cool wild animal rescue facility and saw ocelots and tigers and a 12-foot albino Burmese python and all sorts of other cool things. We even squeezed in a quick game of D&D. And of course we all got caught up in the endless logistics involved in planning every meal, every trip in the car, and every detail of every group activity. I'm exhausted. And it didn't help that the under-the-weather feeling I've been having for the last week seems to have finally developed into a full-blown chest cold. Gluh. Josh woke up sick today too--with a fever, not a chest cold, so we'll see what happens with the kids. (Though Isaac has already been phlegmy and coughing over this last week or so too so this all probably started with him, the little Petri dish.)

But anyway my niece is seriously the dang cutest thing in the world and it was great to spend a good chunk of family time together with everyone; in between all the kid wrangling and food prep and event planning were moments of quiet, everyday grace, where everyone was just doing their various things and nothing was falling apart and it just felt right, like it does when your family, all those people you love most in the world, are all around you and you're safe and you're home.