Our family recently took an extended Memorial Day weekend and finally got to have a long overdue visit with several relatives. We left Atlanta on Friday afternoon, and first drove to Fairhope (near Mobile, AL) to visit with my husband’s family. While we were there, my mother-in-law cooked the entire time – we ate sausage and biscuits, homemade blueberry muffins, cheesegrits, etc. for breakfasts, and had smoked pork roast, fresh silver queen corn, baked beans and much more for dinners.

We left my in-laws on Monday morning and headed east on I-10 to my grandparent’s house near Pensacola, FL. When we arrived at lunch, my grandmother had prepared her homemade chicken tenders plus an assortment of salads and chocolate oatmeal drop cookies. While at my grandparents, we also got to see my Aunt Liz and Uncle Dave.

After leaving my grandparents’ house late that afternoon, we headed to my brother’s house in Enterprise, AL for an overnight visit. When we arrived at his house, he had prepared a beef roast with potatoes, carrots, onions and greenbeans, plus chocolate pudding pound cake for dessert.

Are you seeing a pattern here? In case you haven’t seen the movie A Bug’s Life, the basic premise is that a colony of ants is being tortured by grasshoppers. The ants have to gather the winter food for the grasshoppers, but once the grasshoppers eat the feast, they leave the ants alone for the remainder of the winter. So, the ants’ mantra is “They come, they eat, they leave. They come, they eat, they leave.”

Sounds a lot like the Campbell family – we come, we eat, we leave. We felt like a swarm of locusts, leaving destruction (or at least corn cobs) in our wake. In the words of my Aunt, as we were leaving my grandparents’, “Swarm on!”

We have finally swarmed full circle back to Atlanta and reality. The reality of trying to lose the 10 pounds we each gained on vacation. 😕