How to celebrate

First of all, what does a family do to celebrate 50 years of marriage? The first guesses are: Let's Have A Big Family Party. Let's go on a cruise. Let's go to a resort. Let's go to a theme park. Let's rent a restaurant and throw a bash for the family and friends. Let's have the family gather and have fun.

For us, these choices were very complicated. Our sons and their families lived in separate cities from each other and from us. So, it meant choosing a city or location which allowed all three of the groups to get together. Our oldest son and his wife both work and their sons are busy High Schoolers with lots of after-school activities. So they wanted to party at a school vacation time. Our youngest son and his wife both work. He is a Speech Pathologist for a public high school and so school vacations are perfect times to meet. BUT....his wife is a professional ballerina and her working schedule is very demanding, so there are many "normal" vacation times when she is dancing two performances. Their daughter is almost 3 years old so it is hard for them just to pick up and travel.

Of course, to complicate things even more: we live in a third city, luckily in the same time zone. We soon decided that theme parks and cruises were not for our family. Taking a small granddaughter AND two big grandsons didn't seem like a relaxing way to spend a few days together if we were "trapped" on a ship. And, it would mean extensive babysitting to keep the little darling occupied. It seemed the best just to have a small family party at someone's house.

We decided to go to Chapel Hill to the home of our oldest son. We would rent a suite at a nearby hotel and the teenagers wouldn't have to miss school and we would have the baby with us--fun for the grandparents.

It worked out perfectly. Our granddaughter fell in love with our oldest grandson and started flirting with him. He is exactly the right age to be a good role model for her and here they are sitting together as he plays a computer game and she watches.