Family Tradition

The last Wheeler will be married off tomorrow. Strange to think of my brother as being a married man, but not strange at all to picture him as a dad some day. Is that weird? Well anyways, I am really looking forward to seeing my whole family this weekend as we meet up from all over the big state of Texas. There is nothing quite like it. Did I mention my grandfather has 10 brother and sisters. Yep, lots of fun! They all made a trip down for my wedding, and this was the first time Chris had met most of them (he had met a few at our Christmas reunion the year before), and they did not disappoint. The Wheeler tradition when a member of the family gets married is to give a full, 32 gallon trash can. When I say full, I mean filled to the point that the top will not close. And here is the interesting part, the contents are unlabeled cans. Typically, a variety of canned goods are bought, the labels are removed, and then both are given to the wedding couple who then have to guess when opening the cans. In our situation, the labels were not in the trash can with the canned goods, so not only did we not have a clue what was in each can, but we didn't even know what the possibilities were. Needless to say, one night when I had planned to have a side of vegetables for dinner, I was amazed to discover the contents of the can was dog food, can you believe it? And then there was another instance where I happened to open exactly what I needed, green beans. Unfortunately, once the green bean casserole had been cooked and we sat down with our friends who had joined us for dinner, I suddenly realized the casserole tasted a little off. I couldn't quite put my finger on it, until Chris says to me, "It tastes like pickles." Sure enough, after a phone call later that night to my granny, there is such a thing as pickled green beans. Who knew. Moral of the story- don't judge a book by its cover, don't judge food by its appearance, always smell the ingredients of your recipes as you are cooking?!?!

I am looking forward to the look on Heather's face when she sees a huge trash can at the reception tomorrow. MMMMMmmmmm! I hope they get some great surprises.