Required Reiding: Thanksgiving Was a Jumpin' Good Time

Hello, Dear Readers! Since I now know that many of you have loyally stuck by my side even as I was AWOL on the old blog, I hope to break that streak and post more. But true to form, Thanksgiving was over a week ago and I am just getting around to blogging about it. Better late than never…

So Katie and I made the trip down to my hometown of Vicksburg, MS to see my family for the holiday and it was a lot of fun. We arrived the afternoon before Thanksgiving, and my sister Erica and her husband Fuzzy arrived late that night. Turkey Day celebrations were to be at our house the following day, with 12 of us total, so we were prepared to do whatever it took to help mom have a low stress morning of preparations.

But instead we jumped on a trampoline all morning long. ‘Tis true. Now granted, we did help out. We straightened up a bit, did a little vacuuming, but by and large we just jumped on the big trampoline in the backyard for hours. And when the company started to arrive, we’d just yell things like “Hi, Mamaw!” from the trampoline. There’d be plenty of time for hugs and visiting later.

Now, the funny thing about this trampoline is that we didn’t have it as kids. This is not some Reid family tradition. My parents bought the trampoline 3-4 years ago, well after us kids had moved away from home. (Hmm…the same can be said about their nice big house…I sense a conspiracy here!) My mom wanted a trampoline, so my dad bought her one. I remember the conversation when dad told me of this purchase like it was yesterday:

Chris: Excuse, did you say “trampoline?”

Dad: Yeah. A trampoline. Your mom wants one.

Chris: A real trampoline? Why?

Dad: She wants it for exercise and she thinks it’ll be fun.

Chris: ….

Dad: Really. She wants one.

Now, I am not opposed to my parents owning a trampoline. But we’re talking about someone who one time actually broke her foot standing still. (OK, there’s more to that story than I just told, but it’s funnier without any of the actual facts behind it.) And to be fair, she did jump on it. But by and large, it has sat unused and killing the grass for most of its time at my folks’.

But the weather was just right, and there must have been some magic in the air calling out to us, cuz we jumped on that thing the whole time we were there. Mostly it was Erica, Fuzzy and I, but we did get Katie up on it once and even coaxed mom into climbing up and sitting on it as well. And my two cousins Matthew and Scott got on it and we discovered that Scott is the all-time champion of “Crack the Egg” (in the role of “egg”, that is. It was actually one of the best visits we have had with them in a while, and I am not too ashamed to admit that while jumping/wrestling on the trampoline I got a good fart out on both of them. And Erica got me once, too.) The following video pretty much sums up the trip.

We did do more than just jump, like walk around downtown Vicksburg, go to Jackson to see a concert with my boy Ian and our friend/relative Chad, and hung out at Daniel Boone’s new coffee shop above the Attic Gallery. But I’ll post a little about those later. It was great to see everyone, the visit was remarkably low-key, and a good time was had by all, with or without the trampoline. Here’s a few more photos taken by various peeps.