Reunion

So we were all in flagstaff at a family reunion. A couple of heavenly days with children running amok, delicious food, hiking, grand canyoning, drinking grand canyon brewing company beer (well really just me, nice to be with mormons....meant an endless supply of beer in the little lobby store!) and basketball pick up games. Whenever I attend these events it makes me a little sad as I wish I had been able (made impossible due mainly to geographic location) to know more about my adult nieces and nephews. Luckily there seems to be a bond that has maintained and a closeness that comes from watching a human go from tot to adult. This family is generous of spirit and has a warmth and honesty that comes from having a matriarch who was smart, funny, determined, practical with a well defined idea of "what is the right way". "I'm not sure that is right" and "I'm not saying that my way is the only way, I just think it is the right way".

On top of all of this, I got to spend a few days with my adults, who even tho they truly are adults are still my babies. Seeing them interact with each other and then their cousins...well its worth the price admission (seeing burke and his cousin's husband clint endlessly challenged to basketball games by 10 year olds, hilarious, sweet and a tale to be told through the years!). The icing on the cake was a poolside visit with one of my original babies, cam, her husband and her baby, plus her parents. There is a wonderful moment in life when the people you knew as babies turn into amazing adults and you start to relate to them on a peer level. You still keep the unconditional I'm the auntie love for them but you also realize you want to hang with them on an adult level.

Sigh.....heavenly!