Fay and Olivia's Second Annual Southern Excursion
Fay and Olivia made their second annual trip down to Hathaway for a weekend in the country. I picked them up Friday night and we headed back to Hathaway where they dropped their bags, hugged mama and promptly passed out. Saturday morning we were up early and headed out to the farm for a ride. The weather was hot and humid and the horses were not having it! We all had some issues with Zippy, Grulla, Skip and Guido but it ended up being a fun day. Our biggest mistake was taking them out in the hayfields which were three feet tall and thick with gorgeous hay. It was like asking me to walk down a street paved in fried chicken. Forget it. They were so busy eating, no matter how hard I kicked, yelled, prodded, Skip wasn’t moving and neither was Guido. We ended up having a nice time in the back fields and got some good canters in when back in the ring. But just like going out, getting the horses groomed, dressed and petted is usually more fun than the actual ride.
We dashed back home, did a costume change and headed over to Connie and Ben’s for James’ engagement party. I grew up with the Knight’s and when they moved up to the lake it gave us all a reason to get back in touch. Every Boxing Day the Knight's have a swinging party that I usually don’t remember. Kyle was highly amusing as always and she made the margarita’s waaay too strong so after two we were all a bit loopy. We chatted with the gang for a couple of hours and then headed back home for dinner and some down time.
Once home we opened a bottle of wine and had catch up time with mother in the living room while watching the sunset. It was so lovely. We then set the table for dinner, picked an arrangement for the table and opened another bottle and sat outside gossiping. We finally sat for dinner and dove into my favorite meal in the world- Cator Casserole- pasta, cream of mushroom, corn and ground beef baked to yummy goodness. After dinner we popped open the final bottle of wine, giggled around the table and passed out at 11pm. Full day and a perfect day!
On Mother’s Day we woke up late and presented mom with her gift- a phot album of our trip to the Cayman Islands. Her big present was her very own FaceBook page. I created it weeks ago, uploaded loads of photos, asked people to friend her and made status updates about the big surprise. But last week I had a comment on my wall from mom. Ends up she had created her own profile but the present was still a hit. She now uses the one I made for her and me and the girls showed her how to use it. Around 11am Pepe showed up with his two cute kids and we all took a cooler and headed to the boat. Marcus and Ellie were adorable, very well behaved and seemed to have a blast. By the end of the day Ellie wanted to spend the night. Dad let Marcus ‘drive’ the boat out to Cocktail Cove where we dropped anchor, popped open some beers and dove in the water. After talking about swimming the entire ride over, once Ellie stuck one toe in the water there was no way in hell she was getting in. Pepe and I took the plunge to show her it wasn’t that bad but she would have none of it. We all watched the rednecks come and go in their speed boats or broke down houseboats, ate a light and lovely meal made my the one and only Mama Sparks and soaked up some sun before having to head back to NYC. Once Marcus his nap time we headed home, packed everything up, lazily rolled into some civilian clothes and mother drove us to the airport. The girls have been wanting to try boiled peanuts since our last trip to Atlanta so mother swung into Pop’s where I ordered abag from a toothless, but angelic woman. As soon as the girls slurped one down they were over it and passed the bag back. Not their idea. An acquired salt taste I reckin! I ate half the bag on the way downtown and left the rest for dad to enjoy.
Check in was fine and all was calm until I attempted to sit with the girls and offer my seat to one helluva angry Asian chic. She about blew steam when I asked her to sit two seats behind us. It was so funny everyone turned around and looked at her. I asked loudly if she had her britches in a wad and the end of the world wasn’t upon us if she took the seat. So from three rows back she screamed that she did in fact want that seat so I kindly got up and moved and she crashed into her seat next to Fay and Olivia. Bad idea. They got up about 100 times during the flight to thoroughly piss her off and Fay wrestled her for the arm rest for two hours. Don’t mess with Tex!
