In the Sweet By & By

  July is burning through days at a 100 degrees.

My family's much-anticipated 4th of July/60th Anniversary Family Reunion over the first week of July was 100+ degrees all week.

In the rearview mirror I no longer see that as anything but n-o-r-m-a-l, apparently.

Would that the reunion t-shirts had been dry-wicking.

I have a few photos of the summery-est of nights: a bluegrass concert with Grandpa on the banjo with his friends under the backyard pergola.

It's nothing you'd ever see under the city lights, and for that I am obsessed with it.

I laughed really hard that night.
 I soaked in the little baby faces, the fun faces of aunts and uncles (at 28 years old, I still love the feeling of being surrounded by my aunts and uncles), my sibs, my dad, my mom, my grandparents.

Maybe all that soaking in was why I was sweating so much.

Or that it was 103 degrees!

The night ended with a rush to the front porch as the skies darkened for a brief but forceful summer rain storm.
It wasn't enough rain to bring the brown grass back to life, no.
But rocking on the front porch in the rain brought on the re-hashing of lots of funny stories of country storms when we were kids, like when the trampoline flew through the kitchen window.
That was a classic.  You just don't forget things like that as a kid.

You just don't forget nights like this as an adult.