Thank heavens for Ziplocks and Press and Seal

I'm up in Kansas City visiting the outlaws....oops, inlaws. It's been a great visit, my oldest stepson has new house and a new significant other and she is great....she laughs at my jokes, so I love her. My stepson is the happiest I have ever seen him. The brave girl hosted lunch for uncles, aunts, grandparents and cousins and did it all with a smile. One of the cousins, who is more like a son to my husband, stopped by on his way home on his honeymoon so we had two new girls to indoctrinate into this family of mostly boys. My husband, the chef, and his son did all the cooking while we ladies sat and chatted, then at dusk, all the guys went fishing and we ladies drank wine and ate chocolate for a couple hours and got to know each other. A perfect day.

We had a few interesting moments. Since the guys were cooking, THEY decided that the new significant other and I should drive 20 miles to go pick up Grandpa and his wife......my stepson, pulled up a map on Google and told us how to get there and we set out on our quest....no printout of the map, no written instructions or address, just us two girls with a vague idea of where we were headed. I was busy chatting instead of navigating and missed the turn off, so when I saw that we were almost to Warrensburg, we turned around and then found the turn off. It only added 40 miles to our trip. We swore each other to secrecy and I knew then that we will be great friends.

Then, I remembered Grandpa's retirement apartment building as being tall, like 7 stories....it is 3, but I did recognized it from a trip 3 years ago and we found them in the lobby. They were expecting my sister-in-law to pick them up and my father-in-law, like my husband, is very resistant to change, especially change in his plans. So I talked real fast and herded them out to the car and got them locked inside before they knew what hit 'em. But not before I introduced the new SO to them with the wrong name....decongestants are not my friend. I could have died.....so I played the disabled card and make a good case for lupus brain fog.

I'm sure they will all be talking about me for a long time.....I took a decongestant this morning so I was on fast forward and felt compelled to fill any silence with a story. I regaled them with stories of when I first met the boys, my daughter's colorful comments during delivery and then capped it off with short stories of the little old patients that I see at work.

Welcome to the family MICHELLE....(not Melissa....I had the M right:>)

Dinner was wonderful and they made so much food that we could barely fit the leftovers in the fridge. Thank heavens for ziplocks and Press and Seal.