Mark's and my annual hosted family holiday is one we made up. NOTE: each O'Leary has a hosted family holiday, but they are typically Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving. Making up our own holiday gives us flexibility in planning the date - but we've decided its a summer thing- scheduled sometime between May and August. This year, to beat the heat, we tried Memorial weekend, and adjusted the name of the celebration to Festimorial.
There was a quorum of family attendees, and we had lots of food. The rainy weather cleared and it was beautiful for going to the beach and for feasting. The obligatory telling of jokes and feats of strength were a bit more competitive with awards for the best (decided by me). While the feat of strength last year was arm wrestling, this year we had one legged, intertwined arm wrestling. And the winner was....MOM! This feat required lots of hopping and upper body strength, topped off with strong core strength. Mom's pilates paid off!
The hands down highlight of the day was watching the baby doves, literally inches from where we were wrestling and eating. Their mother decided it was time to learn to fly. So we watched the process which was uncannily like teaching a baby person how to take their first steps. And like humans, each baby bird needed motivating by mom, was clumsy when they tried to fly, and had a protective mother taking care of them along the way. It was like having our own personalized National Geographic episode.
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