What We learned

I'm probably going to butcher this, but I'm going to try anyway.  Not being Jewish and not being around Jewish people all the time....I had no idea.  A Bar Mitzvah is a very big deal.  It's not just turning 13 years-old.  Collin has been taking Jewish classes since he was in kindergarten and Hebrew classes since second grade.  Hebrew sounds hard to learn.  The Cantor who was one of the ones helping Collin the last year added up the time Collin had spent on his Bar Mitzvah.  156,700 minutes. He sung a song about it and that is why I can remember the count. 
The ceremony along with services lasted a bit over two hours.  We managed to sit pretty still the first hour and then had to go outside for awhile.  Then the little man wanted to go back in.  I was not sure we were ready so the little woman and I sat outside.  Then he came back out and informed us we could sit in front now.  Oh boy.  In he went back to the front.  When we went in he was squeezed in the front on the edge.  We sat back in the back where we were the first time.  Turns out the little man was sitting next to Collin's grandpa who did not mind in the least.
When the ceremony was done there was a nice lunch served.  Nathan had hired a game truck (who knew there was such a thing?) for the kids.  I lost mine for an hour and a half.  Quiet.  I sat and watched the people.  I watched Nathan and Stacy and Kyle, the grandpa, work the room.  I think Stacy's mom felt a bit out of place.  She is usually the hostess so she started cleaning up.  It was going to need to be done, but it seemed like she needed to do that.  Hard to explain.  She had no problems explaining just what she wanted when some of the others started helping her. 
Stacy let us have one of the centerpieces.  We took one of the cactus that the little woman loved when we walked in the room.  The little woman was ecstatic when she found out.  I was so reminded of how much we love Nathan and Stacy.  We need to make better efforts to get up there once in awhile. 

We had tried to hook up with Chad and Gina.  But it turns out they were out of town for the weekend.  Chad had suggested we still stop in and see Ky.  Now I wasn't too sure.  Ky is a teenager and I just didn't figure he would want to spend part of his "free" weekend with little kids.  I was wrong.  I got a text at the Bar Mitzvah asking what time we might be showing up.  So after we were done at the Temple, we headed over to visit with Ky.  We met his new puppy, Shadow.  Shadow has a great face.  Almost as lovely as Raina who belonged to Heather.  And that is immediately where my mind went when we met  Shadow.  The kids played with Shadow and Ky.  I visited with Ky's grandma who lives next door to Chad.  We had some things in common and no one to interrupt us. It was a nice visit.  Glad Ky texted and wanted us to come. Maybe next time we won't pick a weekend when Chad and Gina are gone. ;p
We hit a McDonald's on the way out and then the long drive back down.  Traffic was pretty light.  It was a nice break in our routine.