Just a slice at a time

A slice of life, that is. The holidays were wonderfully busy, full of fun, memory making, and with just a bit of heart ache thrown in.

The month of November and December brought visits from my dad's side of the family. My cousin, who lives in Indiana, came out and stayed with them with the hopes of starting fresh.

It was both fun and weird to have family close. For all of my growing up years, extended family has been msome far away ideal. A group of people we see once a year at best. I married into a wonderful family so I have/had cousins, an aunt and uncle, and grandparents close by to share life with as an adult. Nathan ventured out to Oregon by bus no less and stayed for a couple of weeks. Unfortunately, he decided that he wasn't ready to make some hard changes and left in sad circumstances. I am thankful for the weeks that we had with him.

In December, my sweet (and often bothersome) father turned 5o. In celebration we asked his mother (my grandmother) and one of his sisters to come out and celebrate with us. They also made the long trek from Indiana to Oregon (on a jet plane :) ) and we had a fun filled weekend over at my parent's stuffed-to-the-seams house. My brother and his family came down to add to the grand melee and we ate lots of food, chatted about life, got dive bombed by small helicopters, played some fierce crazy eight games, and generally had a great time.

I was there so of course we took pictures...

You just can't beat a long weekend with a loving family. Well, maybe a nice, quite weekend someplace tropical:)