Families Are Forever

As I've said before, this blog primarily acts as a surrogate journal for me, so I apologize in advance for the writings contained within if they sometimes seem pointless, confusing, or irrelevant. Reading my friends' blogs has inspired me to write about one of my favorite topics: Family.

The extended family that I am most familiar with is my mother's side. My dad's family lived mostly in Utah, Idaho, and Washington, and my mother's family lived in Michigan, Chicago, and one branch in Utah, so I was much closer to them. My mom's brother, Doug, married after his mission and he and his wife moved to UT to raise their family. Doug's always been one of my favorite uncles, and he's tried to visit here as much as possible on a somewhat limited income. His past few visits have been sad ones, associated with funerals of his mother and brother, but always welcome. It was especially fun to have he and Tricia visit with the kids - my "Utah cousins." Sometimes, just one of the cousins would come out for a summer when I was a kid and stay with Grandma for a month or two. Well, since Grandma's not here anymore, Stacie, my youngest Utah cousin (who's about 5 years younger than me) came out to visit for this past week and stayed with Aunt Christina.

Stace and I have always been really good friends. She is funny, easygoing, open, and is generous enough to say that any activity we can think of for her is fantastic. While she was here we went to the beach a couple of times (with the aunts, kids, etc.) and had some whole-family cook-outs. But the BEST visits we had were our VERY late-night walks. I drove over to Christina's after the kids were in bed, and we walked the neighborhood till 1 or 2 in the morning. (Thank goodness N.M. is safe.) We shared all the "family secrets" from both sides, talked about marriage and kids (she's still single), jobs, goals, church, gospel topics, and agreed that Lake Michigan is the best place to be on earth.

There's something about family, isn't there? Something that makes friendships that are so deep and lasting, even between two people (like Stace and I) who really don't see each other much, or communicate regularly. I wish I could know all of my family, even the extra-extended parts, more often. After all, we all only have a limited amount of time on this earth and I have so many cousins, if I don't get started now, I'll lose the opportunity (at least for now).

"I don't care how poor a man is, if he's got family, he's rich."