Non-family Family Reunions

Jody used to work with a young guy named Clayton. They went all over the country (or the East Coast at least) doing installs together, and if Jody left one company, Clayton followed. Clayton ended up moving back up to DC a while ago, but they still keep in touch. (yes there is a point to this rambling!)

Clayton called Jody a few weeks ago. Seems like there was going to be a family reunion in Orangeburg, SC and we were invited. So yesterday, we loaded up the cooler, grabbed Kelsea and rode on down. We arrived in the country on the road where Clayton's grandma and a few other relatives lived. We could see the 3 big barbquers going with a huge tent set up with tables under it. The uncles had the hog on the fire since early that morning, and you could just smell that yumminess in the car.

We couldn't find Clayton when we got there.. He had taken one of the uncles trucks and went fishing. I guess he doesn't get much chance to do that up in DC. We went looking for Clayton's mom (I asked Jody what her name was, and he looked stunned for a second and then said... "Mom") by heading over to Grandma's house. There were pictures of one the aunts with her family at the white house, posing with: George H Bush and Barbara, Bill Clinton and Hillary and George W Bush and Lara. In the picture with GHB, Barbara was actually holding one of the children! Crazy, right?

We wait around for Mom to show up, she and some of the "girls" had to go shopping. =) After she arrives, we walk back down to the "party"... and that's when Jody points out the aprons a few of the uncles were wearing...

They had the White House crest on them, one of them said EXECUTIVE CHEF... Jody then mentions that most of Claytons family works as chefs for the White House, or are in the CIA. Kinda cool, huh? The food was, in a word, YUMMO! They roasted a hog, grilled up some chicken, there was some chitlin's (I didn't try that... ), lots of homemade mac and cheese, in a word, too much food to keep track of! I brought my Chocolate Pudding cake, but after finding out the White House Chef's were there, well, I'm not too sure how that went over (but I didn't see any of it get thrown away.)

We were enjoying ourselves, a few of Clayton's cousins took us under their wings and taught us (well, mainly Jody, cause by that time, i was a wee bit tipsy!) how to play domino's. Looks like it will be fun to play. The DJ showed up, and the music started blasting and the kids started dancing. Now I'm wishing I had let go of my inhibitions and just got out there too, but well, I really AM shy and didn't want to make a fool of myself.

All in all, we had a good time. We were made to feel like family, even though we most definently weren't. =) Emails and phone numbers were exchanged with our domino's group at the end of the night (they wanted us to go back to their home and continue the party, but we had to get home so Kelsea could get some sleep so she could get back to her house early this morning). We were invited to go to next year's reunion. How cool is that? Sorry I didn't take any photos, but well, I left my camera at home and wasn't sure how well an "outsider" would go over taking photos and then posting them on their blog. =) So you just had to deal with my rambling. What are your plans for this long weekend?