Family Dinner and Game Night

A few weekend ago, my mom had our family and my brother and his wife over for dinner.  We were going to spend a fun filled evening eating and playing games.  And then...a huge Florida afternoon storm hit.  Well, I can't even call it that. A real Florida afternoon storm is heavy rain, lots of lighting and thunder for about 20 minutes.  Then blue skies and humid air.  However, if my memory serves me right, this storm as extra violent and lasted a lot longer.

My parents were frying a turkey outside, and then it started raining.  I think it was almost done, so they left it.  I was worried the rain would cool the oil down, but it seemed to be fine.  By the way, if you have never fried a turkey...you ought to.  It cooks in about an hour, is not at all greasy and tastes extra juicy. 

Just before dinner, Jeremy was outside on the patio talking to his sister and wishing her a happy birthday.  We were inside setting the table and such when a Great bolt of lighting hit across the street, everything went dark and there was silence in the room (well, we were silent, the thunder was roaring).  A moment later we here Jeremy (outside) exclaim, "OH MY GOODNESS...DID YOU HEAR THAT TIFF?"   Then, the kids started crying and we all started talking at once.  Jeremy saw the lighting hit the tree just a couple hundred yards away from him.  Needless to say, he got off the phone. 

Dinner was ready, but it was dark and there was no fan...but the food was good!  So, we had a yummy dinner together. Near the end, complaints started to ring because it was getting warm with no AC or fans, and very little wind was blowing through.

We live just a few blocks away, so Jeremy went home and we found out that we had electricity. So, we packed everyone up and headed to our house.  The rest of the evening, we took pictures and played spoons.  We are all realizing that Nicole is our up and coming  "person to defeat" in games.  I think she beat us at least 2 times, all by herself while playing spoons.  Pretty amazing!

It was a fun night hanging out with my parents and my brother and Erica.  The kids of course enjoyed it, and memories were made.