These are the Days that Memories are Made Of

Today is our school's Open House, a chance for our kids to show off their work and for us to size up the teachers (kidding) and socialize with other parents. The school always holds Open House on a Sunday, so that the event follows the 9am Mass, which we usually attend.

Mass is always especially crowded on Open House Sunday, with all of the families that don't normally attend. We have all been pretty sick these past few days, with scattered fevers, runny noses, and LOTS of coughing. Last night, coughing kept at least four of us up way past our bedtimes.

When the time came to get everyone up and ready for Mass this morning, I made the executive decision to let everyone sleep, rather than take a coughing, sneezing, snotty brood into a crowded church where they were sure to breathe all over the Family of God. We planned instead to get up an hour later and bring everyone to the Open House, where we knew we really needed to ooo and aah over a painting of Jackie Robinson (4th grader), a Mayflower project (3rd grader) and a book of fractions (1st grader).

So picture this. We arrive at the church just as Mass is ending, and folks are starting to stream out and make their way up the hill to the school. We parked in the lot, on a significant slope, with our car headed up the hill.

I have been driving around for about a week with our overflow recycling in the back of the van, clattering and shifting all week. Rick did not know this. He opened the back to retrieve the baby carrier and what falls out but our empty beer bottles. Listening to brown Newcastle bottles roll towards a crowd of the faithful is a cringe-inducing experience, to say the least.

So, we're late. We're snotty. And we're dropping beer bottles in the church parking lot. Lovely.

We are, officially, THAT family.

It could have been worse. The crowd hadn't really started streaming out yet, just a couple of little old ladies who politely acted like they did not notice. Those bottles could have rolled all the way down the hill and come to rest at the toe of our parish priest or -- better yet -- the school principal! The glass bottles could have broken, creating a hazard for the entire crowd of folks walking up the hill. Our kids could have been throwing the bottles down the hill.

Oh and it really could have been worse: it could have been bad beer!

Just another lovely Family Moment.