Well, That Was Fun...

We had a family swim party saturday, which happens annually and also celebrates the birthday of a cousin who died when I was eleven.  My married sister forgot, and so didn't make it.  Neither did my oldest brother.  But all my other siblings did.
Swimming really helped my shoulder, to the point that I forgot the injury.  Then my cousin asked me to take her son out of the changing room while she got dressed, and I picked him up with just my right arm.  After five steps my shoulder informed me of its distress to this arrangement.  I quickly yet carefully switched arms (I had my stuff in my left arm, hence why I used my right) before going any further.
Yesterday was a family reunion for the other side of my family.  We went to a lake up north (there is one to the west, but it's very salty and low) to picnic and have fun.  I didn't swim, as my swimsuit was at home.  Had to buy a new one for Saturday-my old one wants to bite the dust.
My youngest brother had four girls following him like ducklings-so cute!  We did a lot of driving due to communications breakdown.  Once we got to the right beach there was the half hour or so of setting up shade (three umbrella's that screw into the ground, and a small canopy that my aunt wanted to set up by herself due to the complexity) then we mostly sat and chatted.  My oldest sister (married one also couldn't make this one) started playing Trivial Pursuit with my second oldest (oldest didn't come) and I.  That game makes for interesting conversations.
Right before we left the wind that was blowing constantly kicked up a nice dust devil-that picked up someone's paddle board and hurled it fifteen feet up and at least fifty feet out before dropping back to the sand and tumbling it end over end for a further twenty or so feet.
It also stole my aunts umbrella (the two we brought were already down due to earlier gusts blowing them over) and someone else's umbrella-hers took the screw in stand with it, theirs came out of the stand.  Both flew a lot higher and farther than the paddle board.  Two white beach towels also went flying.  Thankfully none of them hit anything, but they didn't stop until the hit the water a few times.  Not damaged either.
A poor girl walked into the restroom later with a bloody nose-not due to flying objects but the dry heat.  She asked if she could get toilet paper from the stall I was about to use, then we both discovered it was out.  She wound up with paper towels and I had to use a different stall.
Got home late, but my brother was the only one who needed to get up really early.  I'm still tired though.  But that's from three days of poor sleep, not last night.
We had fun with walkies on the drive to and from.  Started quoting Horton Hears a Who, Hitch, and one that I can't remember.  Played a game on the way back.
On to the next draft of my article, and I still had to research some stuff.  We'll see how this goes.