Tag Archives: Ping Pong
Ping Pong, Granny, and Jos
Today is Josephine’s 20th birthday, but this entry is about Granny. Granny always comes over to our house when one of us has a birthday (ie 7 times a year for birthdays alone) and we love seeing her here or at her house nearby as often as we can.
Before supper, Gran recited a few poems for us. She still has uncountable stories and poems memorized from years ago, and delivers them with real passion. She’s a wonder to listen to – I should tape record her telling her poems and stories, they would make excellent audio files to play to children. I’ll try and record one sometime and post it here.
We had a nice supper of smoked salmon and stir fry, as requested by the birthday girl, and afterwards I asked Gran if she’d like to play some ping pong – and of course, she said yes.
Downstairs to the ping pong table we went, and after several minutes of warming up, we had a championship game. Lisa kindly took a photo and video of the match:
http://photodiarist.com/Other/Granny/PingPong.swf
I won 21-8.
Granny is 96 years, 7 months old.
Boxing Day MADNESS! One day only, stores open at 6am!
Boxing Day is a big thing in our family. For most people it’s the day they relax after a busy Christmas, play with new gifts, and go shopping for the crazy sales in the overcrowded malls. Since long before I was born, my Mom’s side of the family has held an annual Boxing Day party for the entire extended family. This has varied with time between 25 and 40 people. Everyone brings food and we eat and talk with each other, and often gifts are exchanged as well.
This year, Dad had his camera out as usual, trying to get photos of everyone. I actually took very few photos myself.
For myself, the main event of Boxing Day last year and this year was Carmen and Lauren. They’re second cousins, two of three members of the generation below me, and they’re a bundle of fun. They get along so well, and they’re sooo cute. Myself and Lisa, Jos, Matt, and Dan took care of them most of the night, giving both sets of parents some time off to relax. Matt told them stories and got them to put funny hats and slippers on in the rec room.
Lauren enjoyed watching us play ping pong in the rec room for a bit and luckily didn’t get hit in the head :-)
Everyone was gone by midnight, and we all then went to bed, and Dan went back home.
And that, with no pics of the crowd upstairs (because I forgot to take pics), was Boxing Day 2005!
