June Saturday 2008 ~

This past Saturday was my family’s annual birthday bash, which we lovingly call June Saturday. The reason I’m writing about June Saturday on Wednesday is because I kept forgetting the pictures and I wanted you to get a load of us. The June Saturday tradition was conceived (giggle) several years ago by my mom because she could never remember Steve’s (my husband) birthday. She decided that we should pick a month in which no one in the family had a birthday (June) and we would celebrate all the adult birthdays on that one day each year. I came up with the name, which I stole from an old Shirley Temple movie where she and her parents had a May Saturday each year and they would go on a picnic and just be together. We chose the 1st Saturday in June and have been celebrating ever since. The kids are invited and have fun too but the celebration is really for the adults. We always order a big cake and bring gifts for each other, and have lots of food and drink. We usually pick a theme and play games and have all sorts of fun. The party usually gets started on Friday night and goes until Sunday afternoon, but Saturday is the feasting and gift-giving day. In the past, we’ve had theme parties such as: a Hawaiian theme, where we all wore Hawaiian shirts, a Carnival theme, where we played games that you would find at a carnival, such as Ring Toss, Darts and Balloons, etc., a Pool Party theme where we all wore our swimsuits and swam in Michelle’s (my sister) pool and had a water-based obstacle course, a Cowboy and Indian theme, where we wore “western-esque” clothes, cowboy hats or Indian feathers, and rode on stick horses, and this year was supposed to be a Mexican Fiesta theme. (The pictures right below are from this Saturday.)

In the last few years, our family has had some upsets because my husband and I separated, my sister, Michelle, and her husband divorced, and my step-sister, Jolie, and her boyfriend split up. Needless to say, June Saturday is not and never will be the same again. However, we made the best of it this year, and even though we decided not to exchange gifts, we still gathered at Maman'nem’s and had a wonderful time. My sister and her kids came home from Alabama, my husband came over, Jolie and her son came, and my step-brother, Jamie and his family joined in for the first time. The only ones missing were Michelle’s ex-husband, and their oldest child, Kayla. Kayla had to work. We did not decorate the house in Mexican décor but we had Mexican food: fajitas, tacos, rice and beans, chips, salsa, and cheese dip, and Margaritas. Patrick (my step-dad) put out the kiddie pool and got out the water guns, Jolie laid out under the sprinkler, and we all ate drank and were very merry! We had a family meeting before the party ended to discuss the future of June Saturday because the excitement in the past has waned a bit and we wanted to see if it was an event we all wanted to continue with or should we make this the last year. I am happy to announce that June Saturday 2009 is already in the works and will go on as usual. I’m already looking forward to it! (These pics are from 2006.)