My oldest nephew

After a day of family reunion with my cousins, we drove south for about 2 hours or so to my oldest brother's house for yet another reunion... As night fell we anxiously awaited the arrival of my oldest nephew and his family, visiting from Texas.

I was crazy happy to see my Eric, my oldest nephew!!!! It had been way too many years since we last hugged!

We grew up together and were always like brother and sister because we are so close in age.

I can remember when my Mom took care of him as a baby when his parents were at work. He had a port-a-crib in my bedroom. (remember the old wooden ones?? *see death-trap baby contraptions in post below!) Back in those days, when I was heading off to my very first days of school he was there with me at my house, like he was my own little baby brother. We were always together until he was a teen and moved to Texas, then I wasn't fortunate enough to see him very often. There he turned into a man and started his own family. I miss him!

A birthday and a reunion

Yesterday we made a short trek to Michigan to see some people that share the same blood line. Those would be my cousins!

We had a wonderful gathering at the home of one of my cousins. We had blue skies intermittently mixed with quick summer downpours throughout the whole day. We easily adapted to moving as a group of about 30 from his comfortable yard to his cozy house as the weather dictated, back and forth.

Another reason to get together on this particular day was the event of my Uncle's 75th birthday; the father of my party hosting cousin.

He now holds the honor of being the eldest relative on that branch of the family tree; his two sibling's (one being my Mother) are both gone. He is the one we now go to for stories told and questions to be answered.

The above photo is him as a boy with his parents (my Grandparents) and his sister (my Mother). His oldest sister must have been the photographer! I do love the stories, and a few new ones were told yesterday!

My cousins had some old 8mm family movies transferred to DVD and we had a glorious time narrating and laughing as we all sat in the same room to view some of it.

We marveled, as we watched ourselves on film as infants, at how we all survived the seemingly death-trap contraptions of babyhood eras gone by.

The strollers and walkers and cribs and playpens...

Several times throughout the day, my daughter commented that we needed to get together much more frequently as, "I want to learn all the names and get to know these people!"

I have 2 cousins born the same year as I and our conclusion was that, We are becoming the generation that sits and talks and tells stories as the little ones run around and play.

When did that happen?

A note about this photo: I have used this photo before on my blog and have previously commented on how I like this photo...it is funny- the fact that only my Uncle and the dog appear happy. Maybe they know something??!