3 HOUR DRIVE ONE WAY!!!! good thing i love these people.
so i saw a lot of this...
and we saw a lot of this...A LOT
and spent an exorbitant amount of time in the airport.. but some of us were rocking the rock star look while doing it. he is an accessories boy. he loves himself a hat, sunglasses, jacket, vest... up until the point that he doesn't and then he wants me to hold all his 'tings'.
oh cappy. he is a funny guy. how do i describe cappy with babies? he likes to say things that are wildly inappropriate and pretend like the baby said them. his compliments are things like "well, you certainly are small." but babies love mustaches... and all my babies have loved their cappy. :)
i thought picking up my dad and brother the proper thing to do would be to greet them immediately upon arrival with a bouquet of pink flowers and make them carry them around all over the airport. it was basically awesome. erin and i jumped out from behind a kiosk and thrust flowers and a baby into my brother's arms. he wasn't sure which one he wanted to give back first. :)
we spent a large portion of this visit with good food, conversation, laughter and stories. cappy is the master storyteller. truly. i tried to convince him to write his memoirs. he has lived enough stories for about four different people's lives. i am always amazed.. he can still surprise me with a
'well i told you about the time i---'
uh.. no. tell me about the time you were in charge of a prison chain gang. (!)
in the true spirit of labor day we did alot of non-laboring. grayson was excited because people were close to the ground and made easy targets.
it was my privilege to witness the realization of a secret dream of dad, andrew and alex... to go the arch historical museum. they never came straight out and said it was their secret dream.. but i could just tell....
it was everything they hoped for.
we did spend most of our time sitting in our backyard. the weather was perfection and we just really go all out to show people a good time.
and don't listen to andrew... just because erin and i are vegetarian we didn't actually make any one eat leaves from the backyard.
cappy convincing ari and gray they should get a blackberry---
pretty much for the ringtones.
auntie alex would make one great babysitter. she can do an enviable elephant sound that is quite realistic and ari hasn't stopped asking me to do the 'spiders crawling up your back' game that she learned from her.... which i find a tad creepy to think about it. spiders crawling up your back?? sounds nice.
it was a short 3 day trip but we take what we can get...
we got to keep the cappy for an extra night. he tried to trick ari with the removable thumb show but she wasn't having it. i maintain she is about as quick as i was at the age of 10. i am realizing i was possibly a very gullible child... evidenced by my belief in santa until 5th grade and my amazement that my father could pull off and reattach his thumb with seemingly no physical consequences. amazing.
a really rare, really beautiful thing.
the thing about family is you see little parts of yourself floating out there... your nose, your stubbornness, your ability to turn a trip to the grocery store into a mildly hilarious anecdote... these things feel so independently yours until you come together with the ones who have been there since the beginning. the ones who see your past written beneath your present. then it is glaringly obvious -- we hold pieces of each other. i am my father's daughter. i see myself in my mother's eyes. there is a friend that only my sister can be. my brother will always be my bubby even as a man. i look around and see these people with all our flaws and failings... the things that will never be undone, the hurts only love can cause and only forgiveness can heal.. and the deepness of my soul resonates in the joy of one soaring note... this is my family. this is where i came from. this was my diving pad before leaping out into the waters of life. how do you ever love enough to return that gift? then i see my little ones running to me to kiss owies and read stories. when i catch my husband's eye and know what he's thinking. i realize i am doing it right now. i am writing a beautiful history where i am the diving pad. i am pouring that love forward and into the future.
i made a family.
That was beautiful Lauren :) Just what I needed and wanted to hear during this time of my life. Gives me hope that maybe we can move on and meet again as a happy family.... whatever that may look like.
ReplyDeleteI loved all the pictures. You made it seem like the reader was right there with you. The end made me cry (in a good way). You are so right in how you speak of family!
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