My uncle that lives in Denmark (pictured above) planned to visit America yesterday. I told him that he would miss the family reunion by two days. I was making small talk. He said, “Oh, maybe we can back up our trip to come to the family party.” And so he did.

I know I’ve mentioned here before what the reunion plan was. I don’t know if I mentioned how TERRIFIED I was of the whole plan. Sitting in the park for a whole day seemed like too much. Not to mention would the weather cooperate. It had been swelteringly hot the last few days leading up to the reunion, and it had been raining a lot this summer as well. Two weeks ago I woke up in a cold sweat thinking, ‘what if it rains?,’ and ‘we’ve got to get an alternate location in case of rain.’ And I mentioned it to Daddy and he scoffed, “It doesn’t rain in July!” And he continued scoffing about all my concern when he came and dropped all the reunion plans into Curtis’ lap. And Curtis made lemonade, for real.

Under Curtis’ leadership, we were able to have things where they were supposed to be for the whole weekend, and it went as smoothly as it could have gone.

It was hot and humid on Thursday when the early people arrived. It was still humid and clear on Friday when the rest of the family arrived. But Saturday? The day we were scheduled to be in the park all day? And have lunch there? And dinner there? It rained all day long. It didn’t stop for more than 15 minutes at a time.

We had a pavilion, and we did what Daddy had wanted us to do all day. We played cards and dominoes. The kids played in the rain. They really played hard during the brief breaks in rainfall. And I stressed and worried while I played cards and dominoes. And I really enjoyed my family’s company. And they enjoyed mine.

Somewhere along the line, it didn’t matter that it rained. Daddy brought the folks who swore they wouldn’t come, out to the park for our catered dinner. It was good, too.

Then most of my first cousins came back to my house on Sunday for round three. Sunday started rainy, but turned sunny. So the little kids got to go out and play to their hearts content. And the grownups got to try out the deck and play badmitton. And invitations were made an accepted for future get togethers. So the whole point of having family reunions–to build ties and binds, was realized.