It's nice having my mom living near Louisville again. My siblings and I gathered at her 5-acre home for a quentessential Labor Day celebration. We arrived at around 3:30 as the finishing touches were being put on a new firepit. It's rather ingenius actually. My sister, Heather, drew a circle using a stick and a piece of string and then dug it out. She banked it on the outer edge and intended to cover it with grass, in her words "like a big volcano". She didn't quite get it finished in time so there were a few other hands in the mix. My brother, Derek, covered the bottom with bricks and then added a layer of sand. Then (and I'm not sure who was responsible for this) the inner walls were lined with leftover pieces of aluminum siding from Mom's horse barn. They were lining the entire outer edge with bricks when we showed up. 

While Piper was playing fetch with one of the dogs the adults added their two cents on how high to pile the charcoal and how much lighter fluid should be applied. Then we sat and talked in the lovely late summer afternoon shade while the potatoes baked and the corn roasted. She really pulled out all the stops with big fat steaks for the carnivores, big fat salmon steaks for the piscetarians, and packets of marinated vegetables, prepared by my brother Michael, for the vegetarians.  

After eating until we were about stuffed, we ate thick slices of Dutch Apple Pie that I took. And then? We ate some more. Pieces of wood were gathered and added to the charcoal to make a little bonfire for roasting marshmallows. I think they were all fairly shocked that Piper didn't have a clue what that meant. She soon found out. She had no interest in the s'mores at all, but judging by the velocity with which she bounced off the walls once we arrived home for the evening, she had to have eaten at least 5 or 6.

There was also a little fishing in the pond and a (rare) group photo before we headed home.