We just returned from a Thanksgiving visit to Charlottesville, Virginia where we saw my Uncle Bob and Aunt Jan, Uncle Richard and Aunt Beth, Cousin David, Cousins Craig and Cary and their girls Emma, Hailey and Zoey, Cousins Travis and Laurie and their daughter Reagan and son Will, Cousins Mike and Marcie and their sons Andrew and Ryan. There were 21 of us by my count which is pretty good given that we're all so far apart!
Cary and I spent lots and lots of time together growing up. We spent hours and hours in the ocean on our boogie boards, riding them like horses into the waves and floating along the rope that surrounded our part of the ocean until it was dark. We played endlessly in the street and yard of my Grandparent's house, turning an old metal wagon into a hill racer and our upside down bicycles into bean grinders. We spent nights in our treehouse at the edge of the canyon and hours making shadow puppet stories on the wall of our bedroom. We could talk for hours about anything, and still can.
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| Cary and Zoey and David |
David, Michael, Travis, Chad and Sharon would come to California in the Summers and during holidays. We would spend hours swimming at LJBTC and I would follow them all around, the youngest one, wanting to be just like all my big cousins. When my Aunt Kate had her girls, I wasn't the littlest anymore and ten-year-old me thought Erin and Rebecca were the most perfect babies I had ever seen.
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| Travis and Us |
Fast forward 10 cousins 20 years. 5 weddings have entered 5 new cousins and 11 babies across 4 states. Those in attendance ranged from 13 years to 6 months, which Lane just turned.
I got to watch my baby, the youngest, watch her cousin Zoey (just 2 months older) crawl and her sisters share toys and give kisses.
Football was thrown and watched...
Alcohol was drank and wine discussed...
Dinner was fantastic....and so was the 'fancy' china and silver...
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| Craig and Uncle Bob and Uncle Richard |
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| Beth and Bob |
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| The longest table ever |
kids were great...
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| Andrew and Ryan dutifully wearing their jackets |
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| Will entertaining himself between games |
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| Marcie and Emma |
babies were ogled....
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| Aunt Jan and Zoey |
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| Uncle Bob and Lane and memories were made.    |
Dave and I have younger brothers and sisters that are not near having children, so Lane will not grow up with lots of first cousins like we did, but there are lots of second and third cousins on both sides to play with, which is a relationship that few get to enjoy. Here's to big families that make an effort to see each other! Looking forward to Thanksgiving 2014 in Texas ?!
Thank you to Beth for organizing and motivating us all to make the trip, Cary for hosting us and the big dinner, Mike for taking pictures, Jan for walking my baby to sleep and then holding her for an hour while I drank and sat, Reagan for playing peek-a-boo and Bob for telling us the catfish story when we were talking about toys in the living room....
'Dave, becoming a Dad is a lot like a catfish when it first gets thrown on the dock. At first it fights and flops around a lot, but eventually it gets lethargic, moving a protesting fin now and then until it relaxes and begins to rot in the sun'
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