I Hope You Dance

It's officially been one month.  A new record for my blog neglect.  It isn't that there haven't been any blog worthy events in my life over the last month.  There have just been too many.  Where do I begin?  The last month has been busy, wonderful, exhausting, exciting, compromised and some of the best weeks of my year.  It's funny how when we are living our memories we don't really realize how much we will look back and think how wonderful they were.  It is my goal to appreciate those moments "in the moment".  I try, believe me!  I try!  I made a deal with myself early in the summer to try to have meaningful conversations with people and to be "in the moment" when I was with someone but then all the busy-ness of the summer happens and I find myself scattered and unfocused.   In retrospect I did a lot and had many great times but with so many options I also missed out on a lot of moments.  We have to make choices and I hope I made the right ones.

We danced the night away on July 19th!

There were many opportunities to dance over the last few weeks.  I love to dance!  First, we danced in Madison, WI at Marathon Girl's wedding celebration.  There was karaoke, a live band, a long summer night and we danced with some good friends, their children and our oldest daughter and her husband.  After that fun night we flew with our two older grandsons back to Nova Scotia.  We did the Gigi and Grampy dance for the next 4 days.

Picnic lunches and legos!

It's been a long time since I had two kids under the age of 7!  Grampy and I had the boys for a few days and we suddenly became "young" again.  Unfortunately, we still had our old bodies but our schedules and activities were young.  I went to the Koolaid Kid meeting with my grandsons and saw how the young mums around here do it.  They do it well!  I also remembered why I am a night person.  It's because after the kids go to bed I can finally put my feet up, relax and regroup or stay up much too late with my cousins and wake to regret it the next day.  Either way it has always been my favorite time of day.

Koolaid Kids 2014

The next week involved what I will refer to as "The Games" dance.  This is a dance where you try your best to participate in or watch as many of the Christie/Brown or Brown/Christie Games (depending on which family you belong to) over the course of a three day weekend.  This dance also includes preparing and eating the usual daily meals that must be fit into the few unscheduled hours of each day. Add a few late  nights into the dance and you sometimes feel like you are dancing with yourself as you catch yourself coming as you are going. There are hundreds of people who attend and participate in these games so the possibility of visiting each of them over the three days requires a lot of dancing.

2014 Softball teams

The Games ended in style this year.  It was the 40th Annual Games!  There was a major celebration to commemorate this event which included a live band for our annual barn party.  My second weekend in a row with a live band, I must be living right!  The band, Big Fish, was awesome!  It was also a lot of fun dancing with all four of my children, their spouses and my husband, not to mention all of my cousins and friends.  I think I can accurately say we left it all on the dance floor that night!

Their "I love to dance" gene is sufficiently intact

The next weekend presented itself with more live music and dancing.  Yes, I am living right!   We all went to Prince Edward Island for a concert which featured Alan Doyle, Jimmy Rankin and Blue Rodeo.  So many opportunities to dance!  The day ended up being a perfect concert day, not too hot, not too sunny, not too cool and and not too buggy.   We had plenty of room to dance and let's face it you can't listen to Ordinary Day and not dance!

If you get the chance to sit it out or dance....I hope you dance!

Over the last few weeks I was doing a lot of dancing, there was the Gigi dance, the Mom dance, the Cousin dance, the Friend dance, the Wife dance, the Mother-in-law dance, the Daughter dance, the Sister dance, and the Me dance.  That is a lot of dancing!  No wonder I feel like I did not do all of them to the best of my ability.  I just have to accept that you can't do it all.  Oh, but I try!  Why do I try so hard?  I just hate to miss out on anything.

I not only danced with my one year old grandson, I danced with all of my kids and we had some really good times together.  There is no better thing if you ask me.  So, that's what I have done over the last few weeks.  I may have missed out on some very fun nights with my cousins, I may have missed out on some quiet time alone, I may have missed out on a lot of things but I danced!  And when you have the chance to sit it out or dance I hope you dance too.