aydin in action: Lancaster Family Reunion

We had lots of fun this past weekend in Lancaster at the Hostetter family reunion. It was a big gathering: Nanan (Jo Anne), Ben and Midge; Travis, Sue, and their daughter, Monica; Tammy; Tiffany, Loren, and their son, Brayden; Toni, Brad, and their son, Sawyer; Tabby and her boyfriend Alex; Hilary and Cinar; and Ozan, Aydin, and me (Meredith). Nanan / Jo Anne had discovered a great public park in Bird-in-Hand with an arboretum, playground, baseball pitch, frisbee golf course, and covered picnic pavilions. It would have been great -- except for the rain! We were prepared to take on a shower or two but when the weatherman issued the tornado watch, we knew we had to make alternate arrangements.

Ben and Midge offered up their garage and had tables, chairs, and even candles out in a flash. We ate some delicious KFC (original style) and cole slaw, plus Midge's scrumptious homemade baked beans, not to mention biscuits, salad, watermelon, a yummy fruit dip that Tammy made, and yummy brownies that Tabby made.

Everyone was very excited to meet Aydin. But we all know how our dear little celebrity is—she likes to keep her fans waiting. As such, she fell asleep about 2 minutes before we arrived at Ben & Midge's. Ozan and I were in a pickle: she needed to nap, but we knew that taking her out of the car would wake her up at the height of crankiness. Leave it to a seasoned mom to have the answer: I called Hilary's cellphone, put mine in the car, and presto! An instant, portable child monitor. Luckily the weather was cool enough to leave Aydin in the car without it getting to hot. Aydin definitely liked the arrangement. Hilary and I thought we heard something after about an hour, but figured it was interference due to the rain. Then, when I went to check on Aydin, I saw she was wide awake, happily chewing on the phone!

It was neat to see Sawyer and Aydin together. Sawyer is five days older than Aydin and very much "all boy." They share many similar traits, however, leading me to wonder if there

isn't something true about all that horoscope stuff after all. They are both pretty mellow, capable of entertaining themselves, generally cheerful, and happy to be around people.

Later that afternoon we hung out with Aunt Dana and her girls, Lexie and Julie Anne, who are 11 and 10, respectively. They are practically all grown up! Smart, witty, very well behaved, the girls were a lot of fun to be around. Lexie is smart and very self-possessed, thoughtful and sweet. Julie Anne has a punch line for every occasion, whip-smart and as gregarious as a teenager with unlimited minutes on her cell phone. Both Hilary and I were secretly thrilled to learn that we had "hottie" husbands. High five, Hilary!

Sunday we went to the park where we had planned to have the reunion. Hilary took some nice family portraits of us.

Afterwards we met up with Dana, Jay, Julie Anne, Lexie, and their friend Sierra for lunch at Harvest View for some Pennsylvania Dutch home cooking. The general consensus was chicken pot pie yes, ham balls no. The banana pudding with chocolate icing was also devilishly delicious in a cafeteria-from-the-seventies kind of way. (Hey, K&W Cafeteria was my favorite place to eat in the 70s, so they should take this as a compliment.) There was some debate as to whether the stuffing, which had shrimp in it, was authentic Penns. Dutch. Our saucy waiter explained that as Friday nights are surf-and-turf nights, the stuffing on the weekend gets that added boost of seafood flavor, thus enacting the very Amish virtue of not wasting food.