I love my family.
My parents are the most amazing people I have ever met. Sometimes my heart aches when I think about how much I love them. They have been loving and supportive throughout my whole life. And I adore my brother Kyle. We have always been close and always have a blast when we hang out. But for the longest time, I did not realize that those 3 people were “technically” my immediate family. I thought my immediate family was grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. See, my whole life, I grew up spending the majority of my holidays at my grandparents’ house (in GP). In fact, when we were really young, we went over there every Sunday for lunch. We were never really close my Dad’s family so this is all I knew. Our family has definitely been through a lot. But through thick and thin, I know I could pick up the phone and call anyone of them and they would be there for me. I feel so extremely blessed.
Let me do the introductions. There are my grandparents, my mom’s parents. They were married 54 (I think?) years before my grandfather passed away 5 years ago which absolutely devastated my family. They were definitely from a different generation, but in a good way! They did everything together and were each other’s everything, I cannot imagine the pain she lives with every day without him. My grandpa was an amazing man; he always made us all laugh. They are both full Czech and still spoke the language.
Then my mom of course and me and Kyle.
Mom’s sister, Renee (that’s how I got my middle name!), her husband Duke and her kids Brandi and Brandon. Uncle Duke is such a wonderful man, he just always puts a smile on my face. Brandon is in the Navy and is currently in San Diego, he is 25. I am so proud of him, our whole family is, he was just certified in something medical related. Brandi will be 30 this year (welcome to the club!) and is engaged to Joel (who coincidentally went to GPHS, was a year older than me, played baseball and I absolutely cannot recall him from those days – Joel Depue). They got engaged like a month ago. We think it’s crazy. Our moms have been waiting forever for us to get married and we get engaged a month apart and are looking at weddings around the same time frame! Pretty cool. Brandi has an awesome daughter Katelyn. She will be 15 this year. She is definitely becoming a young woman and has a lot of spunk and sass – just like her mama!
On those Sundays at grandmas, I remember several things. Brandi and I called ourselves the M&M sisters. I’m not sure why but I am thinking grandma may have always had a candy dish full of M&Ms. We loved the song Manic Monday. My grandmother used to buy us these little spiral notebooks and we would write songs in them. Too bad these were not archived for future entertainment – the making fun of us kind. And we would always brush each other’s hair. The random things one remembers.
Mom’s brother, Randy. He lived in Oklahoma for some time and in North Carolina for a while, but he’s been back about 4 years. The thing I remember most as a little girl about him – Randy and his first wife, Kay took me to Wet N’ Wild, I was maybe 5. That big slide, the Der Stuka or whatever (and why do I remember the name?), well I was apparently bound and determined to ride it…until I got to the top (and by the way, isn’t there some kind of height restriction?)…where I told him I didn’t want to ride. His response was something to the effect of – too bad, we are not walking all the way back down. So I rode it! Anyway, he has two sons. Levi will be 12 this year and is involved in all sorts of activities and sports. And Ryan is 23. Ryan is an amazing kid (young man would be more age appropriate I suppose). He has been in the Navy since he was 18 and is living in Connecticut. He surprised the hell out of me by getting married, dang, last year or the year before to Jenn. I think he might be the most responsible out of all the cousins – ha!
Mom’s other brother is John. He freaking cracks us all up when we get him going. His partner’s name is Terry – and he is a riot as well. They are both super fun.
Like I said, we typically get together for every major holiday and even the not so major ones. Over Christmas last year at my auntie’s (I like to call her that and pretend we are fancy southerners – ha!, I actually just like the way it sounds, not pronounced ANTie, but AHHntie – hooked on phonics worked for me – good grief, back on topic), we played this game called Apples to Apples. Which I believe is a family game. But we got vicious, all in good fun of course and had a blast. On the way home, we thought…why don’t we do this more often? Thus, Family Game Day was born.
We did our first one 6 weeks later. We met at grandmas (of course) around 11A, ordered pizza and played games and talked and hung out through the afternoon.
Valentine's Day
Our next game day was the day before Valentine’s Day. So we (my mom and her sister) decided we should decorate boxes and pass out Valentine’s Day cards. They took this seriously as evidenced below…
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| It looks like Hobby Lobby blew up! |
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| More craftiness (notice Jerod and Joel in the background not participating, tsk tsk!) |
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| Uncle John and Uncle Terry |
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| Katelyn! |
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| Nicole and Jerod |
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| Brandi and Auntie Renee |
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| All the finished Valentine's Day boxes! |
Smart Ass!
We had our last game day a few weeks ago. I found this game called Smart Ass. Jerod and I test drove it. And then I took it over and Mom, Jerod, Kyle, and I played. Kyle and I freaking loved it. I am full of extremely random knowledge. I think it’s from all the reading. So I love Jeopardy, Trivial Pursuit, etc. And I may be a little competitive. Just a bit. So I thought it would be a hit. But before all that, the food craziness. The whole point is for us all to spend time together and not spend time cooking. So we are all about simple meals. One time it was pizza, the next was this delicious soup Auntie made. We figured this time: Chick fil a nuggets, some store bought potato salads, easy peasy. Well, no one remembered that Chick was closed on Sundays until 2 days prior. So then we thought just grill hamburgers and hotdogs, but someone would still be cooking. So we just did simple sandwiches with all the fixings and chips, it was yummy, here’s our spread:
I’m not sure if this is a traditional Czech dish or more German or what. But I remember having this all the time at grandmas and I have not had it in forever, so I requested it special. All it is – cucumbers, vinegar, salt and pepper:
And grandma made a German Chocolate cake from scratch. It was AMAZING. I detest coconut, I scraped all most of the icing and it was still delicious.
Here are some shots of us deep in game play. Not sure if you can see the purple play piece in the middle, but that’s mine. The WINNER! Apparently, only myself and Uncle Duke liked this game, everyone else thought it was “too hard” – SISSIES. Whoa, settle down Nicole.
Another popular game day activity -- reading the paper!
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| Brandi and Joel |
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| Uncle John and Uncle Terry |
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| Wake up Katelyn! |
We discussed our Easter activity and we are doing a scavenger hunt. I coined it "The First Annual Adamek Scavenger Hunt "Egg"stravanganza" - clever, I know. Check back for details and pics soon.
Title Disclosure: This is a line in Bruce Springsteen’s song Dancing in the Dark. I was listening to music on my phone (am technical genius) and had it on repeat, so that’s what you got!
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