The Fieldings come to town

                       Fielding Family Reunion in Maine in July


Jeremy, Spencer and Candice's family were all here with us at our annual family reunion. I was in charge which was great but it all got rather complicated when first of all we decided to settle on a foreclosure home a couple months before they arrived and then in the middle of the remodel I was put on bed rest.
Alainna was unable to come because she had her 2nd baby boy two weeks before. Ciana was unable to come since they had already added two unexpected trips to their summer to attend Candice's baby's funeral and my Grandpa Fielding's funeral in July. 

 Maddie wrote a song for the girls to perform

 Marcus and Brent

Megan

I think they may have ended up the wisest though. They all descended on us during the northeastern heat wave. It was okay at the rental house in Maine. Spencer spent about an hour searching the house when we showed up in denial that it seriously had no AC. Brent and I have acclimated to humidity and are used to sweating a little indoors and couldn't understand why they were uncomfortable without 68 degrees inside. The last night the kids were having an awful time going to sleep in their top of the loft bunk room. We put them to bed about 8 because they were so exhausted. They came down repeatedly to tell us they couldn't sleep and it was too hot. It was after 11 p.m. when 8 year old Maddie came out bawling to her Dad, and hollered down the stairs, "Dad, it's like there's no AC up here!" But that was nothing. By the time we pulled into our house at the end of the week to spend a couple nights there the temperatures were up above 100 and lots of humidity on top of that. That's fine if you have somewhere to get cool but we didn't. Our house had ZERO AC also.   It's usually only in the high 70's so it hasn't been necessary. We walked inside and realized it was hotter indoors than out, so we left immediately and went to lunch at a Chinese restaurant, which had minimal cool air. Everyone was complaining at lunch and I was sick of being in charge and feeling helpless to make them all happy. They were all talking about hotels and we said, fine go, but we are going to stick it out at home with our fans. Definitely regret being stubborn on this point. I was just so excited to have my family over at my house after working so hard to get everything arranged for them that I guess I was going to force them to stay despite it all. After sweating in a restaurant we found the only cool public place in town. The local library. All 22 of us hung out there for over an  hour. We finally went home and tried to stay as wet as possible in the backyard. That's when Brent wrestled my Dad into the pool just like old times except this time he forgot he was dealing with a senior citizen and actually cracked one of his ribs. It was a pretty tense moment as we watched them struggle- my Dad not giving up and Brent unwilling to let go. He kept saying, "Look, I'm not doing anything. It's him." But the point was that he wouldn't get off of him and Dad won't ever give up. I was worried about a heart attack. Luckily it was just a rib. Then armed with lots of fans thanks to Jeremy's credit card at Walmart we attempted to sleep for the night.  At midnight it was still 95 in the bottom bedrooms in our house. The only ones who didn't suffer much were those who chose to sleep on the basement floor.  The next morning they all took off to check into nice cool hotels.  I am so sorry family. I don't know if we will ever talk them into coming back. The crazy thing is those two or three nights were the only hot days we've had here all summer. It's usually perfect weather here all summer.  

I didn't take a lot of pictures due to unexpected grumpiness due to the combination of extreme heat, pregnancy and bed rest.  Caroline, Maddie, and Meg

And why are these thrown in? This is what happened to Savannah when she agreed to take out the trash at the house in Maine. Someone had thrown a broken plate in and this happened on the way down the stairs. Pretty nasty cut with or without the staples. She's had a hard summer. First a cast and now the staples. At least I had some company on the beach for a few days. 
As you can tell she was thrilled too. This is actually the attire we brought her to the emergency room in. It was one of those bloody emergency room experiences that you never forget.