Family

I grew up in a wonderful town and had the privilege of living out in the country, with my extended family living 1/2 a mile down the road.

In the summertime and on Christmas break when it snowed up where we lived, we cousins (7 of us) would play outside all day long. We would hike, build forts, play in the yard, wade in the mini pool on a really hot day, listen to the radio and dance to it singing into our bad mitten racquets, swing on the tree swing (that broke one year while I was in mid-swing!), make home video movies (like our own James Bond movie), eat Popsicles... and in the winter we'd have snow ball fights, build snow objects, sled down the hill into the blackberry bushes by an old abandoned truck (which would make such a cool photo setting now), etc. It was a pretty amazing childhood that I was blessed with. And I got to share it with my two brothers and four cousins. Such fun!

Since then, all of us kids have grown up, most married and moved away. My parent's sold our childhood home years ago and my Uncle is now selling theirs. So they threw a Farewell party, yes one last shin-dig, and all of my family attended (minus my one brother who had to work). :( It was such a fun and special day for me!! It was like returning to my childhood one last time and saying goodbye to it. What a bittersweet treasure!

The highlight of the day was when we cousins hiked from their house, up the hill half a mile to my childhood home, and we reminisced all the way up and back! We laughed about the summer we all camped out in the forest and tried to "live off the land" (we were home by lunchtime grabbing yogurts because we got hungry!) And all the memories we had walking that gravel road and often times meeting "half-way" because in our little minds that driveway was REALLY long!

What a gift our parents gave us to raise us in such a beautiful place and give us such sweet memories. I'm really thankful and I hope my children will have it at least half as good as I did!


This is my cousin Chelsi and her husband Eric.















This is my cousin Ian's son Lucas. Isn't he cute?























This is the new face he makes!









Our large family all together.






Cousins hiking up the road & My childhood home.