And Part 2

6. Fish Story.

So every vacation has a fish story and since I don’t fish (ew! slimy! and oh the poor fish just swimming along trying to eat a worm when BAM!POW!SLASH! Hooked through the lip while being dragged up to an oxygen filled hell.) So, yeah, I will share someone elses:

This little gal's.

Ellie went out fishing with her dad, cousin Maddy and Uncle Bill. The group was having quite the time of it, as they kept hooking their lines around a pesky sunken log, and things were getting tangled and jammed and all sorts of unpleasantness that ensues when you set out to {murder} fish. The DCFI was helping Maddy with her line when Ellie’s line appeared to get stuck on the stupid log, too. Bill went to help her but somehow her pole slipped and ended up in the water. The same thing happened a year or two ago to Ellie, but the pole was lost in the drink forever. This time, though, her {dumbass} Uncle Bill was there and without even taking his freaking shoes off Bill dived in after the pole like it was his firstborn and by “dive” I mean he tried to spastically throw himself overboard, smacking his thigh so hard on the side of the boat that he developed a huge yellow and green bruise almost instantly. He heroically saved the pole and handed it up to the DCFI who was all, “I don’t think this is attached to a log!” and then Ellie helped reel in her first big catch, a Northern.

*Here is where the picture of Ellie and her fish should be. Only the DCFI forgot his camera so he placed the fish in the live dead well until they came back. And you know how this ends, right? They waited too long and the fish totally bit it. The Deps did get a picture of his daughter holding a bloated dead fish, maybe in the hopes she wouldn’t notice, which of course she noticed a smelly, bloated, dead fish. Whatever, though. They got their picture, which I won’t be displaying here, you’re welcome.*

7. The night of the living Mustaches

You guys. I don’t even really know how this happened. We were sitting around playing cards, either Screw Your Neighbor or Bullshit, when somebody went ahead and broke out the fake mustaches. What?! Don’t YOU bring fake mustaches on your vacations?

You're doing vacation all wrong then, lemme tell ya.

Maddy's was so close to her natural hair color that it looked a little too convincing, totally creeping her aunties and grandma out.

We also invited Inspector Clouseau. Who apparently likes to karate chop.

If only all of our family photos could look this good. I'm thinking this is Christmas card material.

8. The shirts.

So the first year it was bass attack (scroll down to 9th picture). Then last year it was wolf shirt. So of course this year was the year of the…

Wild stallions running though clouds, duh. The only obvious choice.

I wonder how long Keaton will abide this before he flat-out refuses to get a dorky matching t-shirt with his dad. My guess is 5 or 6 but that might be pushing it.

No matter. Bill will always have a back-up in the DCFI, who purchased a wolf shirt of his very own this year. (And so did Jen, if you noticed in the above group shot. I managed to avoid the wolf pack this year but I don't know if I'll be able to hold out another year.)

9. The spoons event.

After last years epic spoons event where I crushed Vince (what? It’s my blog, I’ll embellish if I want to), I was a little disappointed to see the game of spoons was already in full swing when I came down from putting Keaton to bed. My disappointment was short-lived however, because in the end it came down to Vince (again!) with his poker face and Giacomo, who at 600 feet tall is a little imposing. At some point in the final round someone started humming Eye of the Tiger and before we knew it the whole room had joined in, lyrics, harmony and all, creating an epic soundtrack of Dun. Dun dun dun. Dun dun dun. Dun dun DUUUUUNNN (Chicachicachica) DUN and so forth, as they played spoons, which PS, is one of the most anti-climactic games to win in the last round EVER, but neither of them was getting 4 of a kind so it kept going and going. I have a video of it but it doesn’t quite capture the awesome of how beautifully random and spontaneous this was, because I started taping a minute or so in. But trust me, if you lived inside my head you’d be laughing really hard right now.

10. This picture.

I have no idea why but I keep coming back to this picture and smiling. I think it’s because it sums up what this vacation was supposed to be about. Shedding our many layers of day-to-day bullshit and stress, getting down to the basics of good food, good drink and good company. Being out in the great wide open, enjoying what we so often forget lies just outside our windows. Who knew Mickey Mouse underoos could reveal so much?

*****

I’ll be posting the rest of the pictures to facebook so breathe easy, Internet, my vacation slideshow has come to an end.

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