A Little Up Close and Personal

You may want to click on this picture to see this guy up close, but I was pretty astounded he even stood still on the window pane while I walked up and snapped a picture of him.

Stick 'Em Up!

My cousin Mikie, on top of my Aunt and Uncle's RV, taking his youthful aggression out on one of my other cousins.

Stuffed and Roasted

My first pig roast! It was far grosser looking at the pig than I imagined, probably because he's stuffed into that roasting contraption pretty tightly. If meat wasn't so damn tasty, I'd be a vegetarian.

Child Wrangler

Here's a picture of my favorite child wrangler: Dan knew just how to entertain the kids--invent a violent cross between baseball, drive-way kickball, and croquet. Thusly, Hammerball (so named for the hammer like shape of the croquet mallet) was born. Here, Dan points one of my younger cousins towards second base, right before his team got beaten soundly by the opposition. Leave it to a few 8 year olds to take competition seriously.

Eye Contact

This is pretty indicative of my family....no one in the picture is looking in the same direction. This even happens when everyone is supposed to be looking at the camera.

Too Cool for the Ground Level

Again at my Great Grandmother's Birthday Party: Two of my cousins, Jessica and Tiffany, chill out way above the crowd on top of Jessica's family's RV.

Our Idea of a Good Time

Ok, so my family is crazy and Polish. And we're conscientious too. We'll throw a good party, but let you know when the appetizers are hot and spicy (or spiked....like my aunt's specially made lemonade...)

A Birthday Invasion

My great-grandmother turned 95 on August 5th (this is posted really too early but I'm going to post a number of pictures from this get-together). Her favorite bird is the notoriously pink flamingo, so the whole family made sure that 95 flamingos were populating the lawn of our summer cottage when my Great Grandmother arrived there for her party. You should have seen the mess the birds left when they spontaneously decided to migrate South.

At the Cottage

Here's my cousin Everett jumping in a rain puddle, his dad Tim fixing one of my cousin's bikes, and their dog Otis running from some very ominous thunderstorm clouds.