These Kids Must be Relatives!

One of the maxims that seem to hold for the Ketelsens (at least, the kids of my brothers and sisters) is that the children are most nearly always well-behaved. It might have had to do with growing up on the farm where if you misbehaved there was always a whack waiting for you or there was always extra work waiting to be done. It just seemed that the nieces and nephews occupied themselves quietly, mostly spoke only when spoken to, and generally seemed to avoid any outrageous behaviour in public.



After an uneventful trip from Chicago to Columbia, SC this afternoon, we checked into our hotel and went to visit family-in-law. While niece Shannon and great-niece Hayes had come to our wedding in June, that had been the only time we'd seen them in years. And this was the first time we had met Chooj (aka Cort - Chooj is derived from the Indian word for "boy". In fact, Chooj was born the day Melinda and I got engaged on 1 January, 2007!). After a time relaxing and decompressing in Betty's veranda, we all loaded into the rental minivan for the trip to "Lizard's Thicket", a local restaurant chain. The kids were great - Hayes was telling us stories about their state fair trip that morning, and Chooj occupied his time using the margarine containers as building blocks. No food fights, no fussing, and even Shannon seemed surprised when Hayes ordered a side of green beans. And after eating, the most rambunctious Chooj got was to go to an adjoining booth to play with the margarine containers (we pretty much had the place to ourselves by then). We must be related!


Melinda finally got to bed after being up 25 hours, and Roger had gotten up early to travel from Vancouver, so I don't think we will make the trip with Shannon in the early morning to watch them training purebred racehorses, but we'll see. The South Carolina State Fair and antique telescope lenses await - how much excitement can we stand!