Family Boundaries

I've seen and heard about soap operatics occurring in families that live "too close" together. Everyone is in everyone's business and giving their unsolicited advice. My mother could truthfully quote me saying, "I will live far away from you and never bring the grandchildren to visit." Essentially that's what is happening since we live in New York and my parents live in Utah, but my heart changed over twenty years ago.

With brief exceptional intervals, I have lived apart from immediate family since I left for college. All of my siblings attended the same university so we overlapped here and there living near each other, but never as roommates. We married and graduated, usually in that order, and settled where the work was.

People talk about living near family but not too near. The general consensus is an idyllic hour or two apart. Isn't that just substituting a geographic buffer for emotional wimpiness? If we can respect each other's individual family needs, differences and personal boundaries we can keep communications open and let the fun flow.

I love, respect and admire all the members of my family. More than that, I miss them. Today my friends announced that they are moving to family. In their case that means Sacramento, California which isn't too shabby! As dreamy as the weather in California is, I would happily live in Montana if that's where my family was. I happily live in New York and I don't have any family here, but I long for my family. I wish for aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents on a regular basis.

We've passed the halfway mark with Star. She'll probably move out in the next 5-7 years.

The Oy! in Ahoy!

We had our first solo family sailing trip.  Yep! Everyone came.  All the kids including Mermaid. After a 3 hour drive to Tom's River, NJ (yeesh!) we finally got our boat and hit the water.  Torpedo hated the idea from the get go, Sparkle was inclined to be bored and Mermaid was just along for the ride.  The rest of us had at least done the classes previously.  

It was a new boat, new waters and 3 new sailors, so there was a bit of mayhem (and screaming from a very scared Torpedo).  We dropped one sail-tie in the water straight off, ran into one of the channel posts trying to recover it and then lost Angelfish's hat into the water.  It was a freebee from a conference, so we decided to let it sink to the bottom.  

After the initial turmoil, we regained our bearings, remembered some of what we had learned in our class and managed to make our way up and down the river without running into anyone/thing, not running aground and keeping all the O's in the boat.  BL (Bottom Line):  we ended successfully!

Post-sailing allowed time to throw rocks of various and sundry sizes into the water from the pier, a chance to use the bathroom and eat, then over to the ocean for an hour or two of watching the sun set behind us and watching the moon rise in front of us.  Truly glorious.  

Some bad traffic on the way home.  We arrived at 11:30pm (12 hours round-trip) but we did it! Gosh darn it.  And we're proud of it.

Outcome:  Sparkle changed her mind and decided sailing wasn't boring at all, but rather liked it.  Torpedo decided screaming his head off wasn't helping him or anyone else around him and settled into it gradually, and Mermaid managed to stay upright in the boat thanks to her "Bumbo" seat.  Star, Angelfish & Tangerine managed the sails beautifully and My Hero got some much needed skipper practice time.  (Tangerine even managed trimming the sails while nursing!  Amazing.)  We left with 2 adults, 5 kids and we returned with 2 adults, 5 kids.  Success!  Ahoy matey!

Beautiful Bella

We're so thrilled to welcome another niece into our family.
The cousins are destined to be great mischief at future family gatherings.

pre season

Our first beach trip this year lasted about 15 minutes, but we met our goals of getting out of town and seeing the ocean.

Special Day

I just loaded these pictures of a special day shortly before we left the Wasatch Mountains.  We visited my Aunt Evie in Kaysville.  She took us to my grandmother's gravesite.  Grandma passed away on Christmas Day 2007.  That felt very appropriate to me since she had such a strong testimony of our Savior and she always brought joy to my life. 

Feeding Horses

Today is March 3rd. Today is the day that we, (me, Urban Tangerine, Angelfish, Mermaid, Sparkle and Torpedo) went to feed the horses. First we went to ask permission. Then we went to feed them. The first thing we had to do was climb over a barbed wire fence, which to me is always a little bit scary to do with Torpedo. Next we had to walk on a very short but very muddy path that took us into the pasture where the horses were. When we said we were going to feed the horses, I had thought that meant with a fence in between me and the horses. Instead we were feeding them right there with them walking around us. We fed them apples and threw carrots at them (without hitting the horses). When the horses started coming closer to us, I started running. I was so scared, I was the one holding the bag of carrots and the horses were sort of half following me.  Sparkle had already run out of the pasture for fear too and was yelling "Run for your life!" and guess what, I did! Angelfish, Urban Tangerine, Torpedo and Mermaid stayed back and they fed the horses some more. Finally though we did leave the horses but they followed us to the edge of the pasture which made me think that they might follow us all the way out. But thankfully they didn't.

Posted by Star

Squeaky Bean

Welcome to our new niece: Squeaky Bean
We had a scare that she was coming 11 weeks early, but she and her birthMom were able to hold on for another 7 weeks! Amazing. She was clearly worth the wait.

Welcome home, Squeaky Bean!

She's just in time for Curly Fry's baby blessing (with the curly hair) Yes, those brethren will work their biceps holding this big boy in the blessing circle, but it took forever to get his adoption paperwork finalized. We were able to attend his sealing at the end of January. And Curly Fry accommodated Squeaky Bean by getting all his paperwork finalized in time for their family to qualify to adopt Squeaky Bean. Sometimes it feels like it takes forever to get your family. Isn't it nice to know the family can last forever, too?! Especially one as happy as the Loomi! Congratulations!!!