non-traditional family

This post is for my beautiful sister and dedicated to her dad.

For those of you that don't know, I come from a very non-traditional family.  When I was younger I envied the traditional family.  I still do sometimes.  What I have is special though and full of some very wonderful people. I'll give you a brief overview.

My mom and dad were married for about a decade and I was their only child.  A few years after they divorced, my mom remarried.  My new step-dad came complete with two teenage boys (their mom was not involved at the time).  I, being a teenage girl at the time, was less than thrilled.  An only child now sandwiched in age between two brothers -- yikes!  It was an adjustment.  A few years later my sister came along.  :)  There is a 14 year age difference between the two of us.  My mom and her dad were divorced a few years later but they have always remained friends.

My sister's dad and brothers (along with their families) are always at my mom's for Christmas.  We celebrate together.  I know the concept may seem weird for my mom to have her current husband and ex-husband together for the holidays, but for us it works.  I still call my ex-step-brothers, my brothers.  They always will be.

That's the back story.  The tragedy is that my sister's dad passed away last night.  It came on suddenly.  He went to the doctor on Monday and they airlifted him to Rochester with a stomach infection.  Several surgeries in a few short days and an infection that wouldn't quit, took his life.  My heart aches for this side of my family.  To lose a parent is unimaginable.  I want them all to know that I am thinking of them and that I love them all.

I leave you all with these photos.  My sister was married about 2 and a half years ago.  Her dad was able to walk her down the aisle.  At only 22 years old, this woman surprises me with her strength and courage.  These are for you Ginny, my beautiful sister.  I love you so much and wish I could take your pain away.  ♥

  

Rest in peace.

S.N.O.W

Well . . . it is Minnesota and it is December so I guess I should have been expecting this.  Ok, maybe I was expecting it but I wasn't prepared for it.  I do love that Minnesota has evident seasons and I don't mind a little snow.  A little snow, I said.  I think we are already at 8 inches or something.  At least it happened on a stay home day.  :)

I took the boys out to play in the snow.  I frantically snapped a few shots because the snow was still coming down pretty hard and I was worried about Lucille (my camera).

 

After playtime we came inside and watched Elf.  Trying to find some motivation to do some Christmas baking.  :)

I hope that those of you that have the snow are enjoying it.

linked 52: Family

Family.
My idea of family is people that are there for you through thick and thin.  I have many family members by blood or marriage but I think it extends beyond that.  This topic has come up a lot recently in my life.

I was divorced last year.  I still have a decent relationship with my ex and with his family -- my family.  I still consider them my family too.  After being married for almost 9 years (together for 3 before that), I can't just abandon the relationships that I've formed.  I'm fortunate enough to have them still accept me as part of their family too.

This is the summer of traveling and the summer of family.  I took a vacation with my sister in May, road trip to visit my in-laws at the end of June, road trip today to visit my dad, and road trip in August to visit my cousin and her family.  Whew.  I love my family enough to spend my summer in the car to visit them.  :)

Taken in ND visiting my in-laws.  My new nephew.

Taken on my vacation with my sister.

Taken a couple of years ago at our family reunion.  My crazy family (dad's side).

It was taken at my dad's house.  Where we are headed to today.  Right on the lake.  I spend my holidays with about 50 % of these people.  They are a hoot.

Next vacation:  Chicago.  We were there already once this year visiting these lovely people.  My cousin and her family (plus a friend).

My little family.

Not trying to gloss over any of my other family.  You can read more about my mom here and my dad here.

Be sure to check out these other ladies to find out all about their families:  Michelle, Stacey, Andrea, Tracey, Heather, Jenn, Jessica, Amanda, Kristin, Amanda, Sara, Tracy, Lesli, Janet, Naomi, Rhonda, Rose, Heidi, Kristi, and Jean

Chicago - part 1

I thought I'd do a post about my trip to Chicago (which I'm still on).  My intention is to do a follow up post but if you know me you know that there is a distinct possibility that it won't get done.  Not finishing what I start . . . something that I'm working on.  Anyway . . .

I took a few days off to visit my cousin Jenn and her family in Chicago. Well, we're actually way in the suburbs, but you get the idea.  We don't get to see each other near often enough so I was really looking forward to this trip.  I have not been disappointed.

We've been hanging out with the kids -- she has 4 and I brought my two.  We're like the Brady Bunch -- 3 girls and 3 boys.  The best part is that they are all 6 and under.  Yep, 6 kids ages 6 and under.  We've got 6,6,5,3,2, and almost 5 months.  Nice relaxing vacation with all those kids right?  In reality the kids have been doing really well together.

We've tried to keep busy.  We had an Easter egg hunt at the house, took the kids bowling, have done a bunch of talking and cooking, had to have one kid (Ryan) get stitches, and took a quick trip downtown.

I thought I'd just include a few pics from that trip downtown.

The 3 boys holding hands while we were walking to get some pizza:

The kids holding up the bean:
(all but the baby)

The gang at the park downtown:

From left to right:  The grownups:  cousin Jenn, her husband Jason, and Jason's longtime friend Casey who was in town visiting on the same weekend.  The kids:  Joe, Karli, Siobhan (in the baby sling), James, Ryan, and Aly.

♥ them!

Celebration of Life

My uncle passed away this weekend.  He was a good man and he will be missed. 

My aunt, uncle, and all their kids always lived in my hometown.  It's great that when I go home to visit my mom I get to see all of them.  All of them includes my four cousins and their spouses and 10 children between them.  They are crazy and they are loud and I wouldn't change them.  They are a very close knit group and the loss of their patriarch was very emotional.

I'm thankful that I was able to spend the first part of the week with my family celebrating my uncle's life and recalling old stories.  A special thing that the family decided to do was to release 71 balloons after the funeral service to represent my uncle's 71 years of life.  It didn't go quite as planned.  The balloons were blown up the day before.  The colors were so pretty.

We should have waited until the morning to blow them up though.  Quite a few of them had lost their mojo by the time of the release.  We went ahead and tried anyway.  A vast majority of them fell back to the ground but a few caught the wind and flew high.  We counted 4 -- one for each one of his children.

It was a beautiful service for a beautiful man.
Rest in peace uncle Don.

I'm Way Behind

Ok.  So my cousin Jennifer came to visit me twice at the end of Spring / beginning of Summer.  It was great to see her and the kids and even though she had another agenda while she was here we enjoyed the time we had.  I feel bad that I have not taken the time to blog about it and post the pictures.  You may think that I'm going to do it now.  You're wrong.  The kids are up and that stuff has to wait until they are sleeping. 

My reason for bringing up their visit is that "Beautiful Eyes" is the theme at I Heart Faces this week.  I thought about taking a new picture but honestly when I think about eyes I think about these ladies.  My cousin and her 2 daughters.  Her son is also blessed with these beautiful eyes but he was not with on this trip.

Love, love, love these eyes.  Love, love, love these girls.

Engagement Pics

Today in the muggy, icky heat we all went to Minnehaha to take some engagement pics.  Lynn's (Mike's stepmom) daughter Jamie is getting married next May to a great guy named Shane.  They asked me to do the engagement pics.  I'm surely not a professional but am happy to take this opportunity to learn more.  I was having a few camera issues but I think we were able to get some good pics.  This is for Lynn (because I know she is waiting).  :)

 

 

4th in Fairmont!

After more than a decade of spending the 4th of July in either the cities or Mandan I traveled down to Fairmont for the weekend.  We left on Sunday and came back today.  It turned out to be a great weekend.  We spent the most of Sunday at the lake with family taking rides on the boat (thanks Dave and Rhonda) and the jet skis (thanks Christi and Kyle).  I skipped the jet skis but enjoyed a boat ride.  I was just happy to visit with everyone since I don't get to see them as often as I'd like.

After all of the swimming and boating we broke out the mini grill for dinner.  We had some hot dogs, chips, s'mores and bacon.  Yep, that's right -- bacon.  Eli insisted there be bacon.  Is there ever a bad time for bacon?  Anyway, we headed over to my aunt Marlene's house and watched a firework display courtesy of Scott and Marti.  We also had more s'mores.  :)  The kids loved it -- the only bad part was the mosquitos.

Monday consisted of hanging out in the backyard with the boys and a bbq.  The boys had a good time playing in grandma's pool and then playing with all of Olivia and Bryan's toys at their house.  We did attempt to watch the fireworks that night but the boys were tired and fed up with the mosquitos so they didn't last very long.  Great weekend with family!

James got new Jibbitz just in time for the 4th.  :)

A little collage of the beach fun that was had.

A few pics of us having our little picnic.

Love this one of Joe's sandy little feet complete with Toy Story bandaid.

Don't know why he just sat in the water but I found it adorable.

One of my favorites.  I didn't even ask them to do it -- that makes it even better.  :)