what I did on vacation day 2

Other than the aforementioned green hole expedition, we watched Kansas beat GA Tech, and then went to a birthday party for Laurie's brother-in-law Jack.

Here's the basic group: picture one (l to r) : the legs of TJ, who is Laurie's niece Katie's fiancee; the back of Laurie's nephew Andy's stepdaughter Abbey with Andy over her left shoulder; Laurie's niece Rachel; sitting, Jack's sister in law Penny and brother "Beanie", and Mark Burns; standing at the edge of the table is the birthday boy hisself; and running towards me on the floor is my good buddy Baxter. Picture two features Laurie's sis-in-law Mary holding new kitten Manny (seated in the rocker).

Here is Manny. He was found abandoned by a co-worker of Laurie's brother Chuck. Mary guesses him at no more than two weeks old due to the fact that she is having to bottle-feed him and rub him to go to the bathroom. At first they didn't think he was going to make it, but he's a real fighter. Everyone fell in love with him, especially Mark's wife Jackie. The picture is him and Laurie.

Next we have the new generation: the little little guy is TJ and Katie's son Jackson. The slightly bigger little guy is Andy and wife Kristen's son Blaine. He gave us a good floor show, shaking his booty to the Allman Brothers. Jackson got his moment in the sun by sticking his hand in mom's broccoli casserole. And for good measure, while she cleaned one hand, he put the other one in. And while she removed that one, he grabbed a foot with the first one. Easy, mommy, I'm just experimenting with more efficient eating methods.

Once the crowd dwindled somewhat, we started a rousing game of pictionary. Some of us are better artists than others. Among the words we refused to do were: parasol, cornflake, tango, and cowardly lion. But the topper was Jack's rendition of lab rat. He never did get to the "lab" part, because we couldn't figure out his "rat":

I ended the game with a wonderful green and red marker rendition of an olive, which gave the boys (me, Jack, Mark, and Rachel's friend Christian) the win over the girls (sister Mary, Jackie, Rachel, and Laurie). Rachel's man Alex did the timekeeping, dice-rolling, and guessed for the girls when Laurie finally succumbed to whatever bug she got from Tina this week. I've a feeling that whatever day three brings, it'll be me'n'Scrappy against the world.