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Sunday afternoon I arrived home from church to find the kids napping in the living room while my dad watched a golf game.
Waiving a silent "Hi!" to each other, I followed the smell of my mother's annual post-Thanksgiving turkey pot-pie that was wafting in from the kitchen.
"Mom, it smells wonderful! Thank you for cooking this tonight. I would have attempted, but I figured that Sadlers and Joan would prefer their dinner edible," I said while placing a kiss on my mother's cheek.
"Pshaw! I'm just excited to meet them." My mother had always adored entertaining guests. Her social butterfly tendencies came in handy during my father's career since he was such a naturally quiet person who had a job that required schmoozing.
My mom used to say that he only married her so that he wouldn't have to talk as much at social events, but I knew this wasn't the case. I couldn't tell you how many times I walked in on my parents making out like teenagers as a kid.
Heck, I even caught them necking in my pantry last week, which was very difficult to explain to Katie and John.
Leaving my mother to finish cooking, I wandered back into the living room to stretch out next to my dad and try to catch a cat nap with my sleeping twins.
When 3:00 pm rolled around, I had been awake for thirty minutes and was already aching to see my Kelly. I couldn't believe that after Wednesday she and the girls would become a permanent fixture in my home.
Our home!
At precisely 3:30 pm, I heard a knocking at the door, and before I could answer it, both John and Katie jumped out of their napping spots like a pair of Mexican jumping beans.
"Is Mazie here?" Katie asked.
"Is Mr. Sadler here?" John asked.
Apparently, my twins had separate priorities.
John ended up winning.
Terry, Shawn, the boys, and Joan all piled into the living room. Luckily, my mother chose that moment to enter the room, so I only had to introduce everyone once.
When we had everyone settled, my mom took Shawn and Joan back to the kitchen to finish up preparations.
"Hey dad, you know that IPA from Sadler's Ridge I buy you every week?" I asked my dad who was silently observing the men of Kelly's family like a sideshow curiosity.
My dad didn't usually spend time with farmers. Not that he ever felt superior to them. He was just fascinated by American subcultures. Thankfully, mention of Terry's beer brightened my dad's smile especially since my dad is always asking me to bring him a six-pack of Sadler's Finest every week.
"You're not the owner, are you?" my dad asked in awe of his new acquaintance.
"I am, are you a fan?" Terry asked.
"It's the only IPA I drink at home. I have one every day of the week but Friday with dinner."
Chuckling at my poised father's sudden perkiness, because he was indeed acting "perky," Uncle Terry asked, "Why not Friday?"
"Well, there's only six in a pack and Dale brings me a six pack every Saturday," he said with a sigh like this was the most devastating thing he'd ever experienced. "We have a small grocery by the retirement community, but they only carry the national brands."
Laughing at my father's lovable dorkiness, I wandered back into the kitchen to check on the ladies so that my dad could grill Terry Sadler like the information sponge that he was.
"Alright Ladies, what's the official menu for this evening? Holy crap that's a lot of food!" If I based it on the amount of food on my counter, we should all be able to eat three meals a day for the next month.
"Oh, stop it, Dale!" Shawn said smacking me on the arm. "Half of these aren't cooked yet. They're freezer meals that Joan and I worked on today with all of the leftovers from Thanksgiving."
"We have three broccoli chicken casseroles; two spoon breads; three meals worth of green beans and ham; six zucchini breads; and eight bags of various soups," Joan added with a smile.
"Why on earth would you go through all of that trouble for us?" I asked in awe of the work they had put into making sure we had easy access to homemade meals.
"Well, Shawn and I do this after every holiday for the family so that we don't waste leftovers. And you are family now," Joan said patting me on the back affectionately.
Completely touched, all I could say was, "Thank you!" before I began lugging the items down to my stand up deep-freezer. Side note: I used to have a freezer chest, but I always hated digging around in that damn thing. At least the stand-up one had shelves, and I could see everything clearly.
When I returned from storing the food at exactly 4:00 pm, I heard a chorus of greetings signaling that my Kelly had finally arrived. Rushing towards the door, I immediately excused myself and pulled Kelly into the den for a proper hello.
"Are you ready?" I asked between kisses.
Seriously, two days away from her was too much.
"Definitely! But before we go back in there, I need to tell you something." There was obvious concern written all over her face.
"Honey, what's wrong?" I asked, holding her while she sighed into my neck.
"Mazie told Geoff about our sleepovers, and now he's pitching a fit about how inappropriate I'm being and that if he hears of another sleepover, he's going to call the school board and file a complaint about our relationship."
Asshole!
"Well it's a good thing that our next sleepover will be on Wednesday night after our wedding," I said, kissing her behind the ear. "Don't let him get to you."
"I love you!"
"I love you, too. Now let's go tell our families."