Family Reunion

Today was a good day in the Heart of the South. First off was Church and I must say that while I was a bit rusty as director of programing I did manage, with the talent nad hard work of my cameramen, to direct not just the worship service but also the message to a well receptive congregation. We only have a few more weeks left in our building but that is OK. Most folks at our Church have made peace with the fact that we are moving on to new a new building and view it as an adventure, sort of like the Jews in Exodus, I just hope it doesn't take us 40 years to find a permanent home. I am a bit excited myself at the prospect of starting over. Well, except for all the wires and cables we will end up pulling through small holes. But I digress.

After service my wife and I decided that instead of traveling over an hour south to a yearly family reunion held in North Carolina with her reletives that we rarely speak with and only see at this particular reunion, that instead we would surprise our daughter with a special Double Feature Family Fun day at the local movie theatre. First though we stopped by the local super discount store and loaded up on candy that we enjoyed and that was not overpriced or stale from sitting in an highly florescent lit display case for the past 15 days.

For me? I got Reese’s Peanut Butter BAR! Yes, I said BAR. Delisciousness in a plastic wrapper. If you like peanut butter and you like chocolate, you will LOVE this thing. Oh, and it is so rich you will wish you had at least a gallon of milk to wash this insanely sweet confection down with.

My daughter? She picked a classic, Bottlecaps and then proceeded to share with me all the root beer ones. I LOVE HER!

My wife? Mini M&M’s. What is not to like about pure raw unadulterated candy coated chocolate?

After arriving at the theatre, my daughter in her exuberance was pretty much dancing from the car to the ticket booth and she kept changing her mind on which CGI film to see. I stepped up to the ticket booth and said “3 tickets for the 2 o’clock Toy Story 3.” My daughter smiled, jumped, clapped and squealed. I smiled.

Then my wife stepped up to the ticket booth and said “3 tickets for the 5 o’clock Despecable Me.” Our daughter stopped jumping, squealing and clapping. She froze. Looked from me to my wife and then back to me. My smile grew even larger.

“Yes Goose, it is a family double feature. Two movies and a day of fun.” I said as I pulled open the door and we walked up to the popcorn counter to purchase more junk food.

After the overly buttered, overly salted, overly priced corn and sodas were purchased we then spent the next 40 minutes playing video games and trying to win stuffed animals out of the Claw machine. We did not win any animals but one girl, who had an armful of these animals, was nice enough to share with my offspring one of her many purloined fluffy treasures with her. Which just added to her happiness.

Once games and fun was had by all we made our way to the theatre for the first round of animated madness. We all laughed and we all got a bit choked up. If you have not seen Toy Story 3 please correct that now.

Afterwards we sat in the lobby of the theatre, talked about the film, played more games and then went in the next darkened theatre for Despicable Me. Good times, we laughed, we got choked up and we all agreed it was worth the wait.

Then we came home where we are almost forced to sit around and try and live with each other. We cope. We laugh, we get choked up and we all agree that spending the day together in a darkened movie theatre breathing canned air and eating junk food was a whole lot better than sitting in bug infested field in the sweltering heat of an unforgiving North Carolina sun eating store bought fried chicken and making small talk with people we have almost nothing in common.

Come to think of it, I believe I did go to a Family Reunion today.

Have a great week everyone.