I know I brag on my family all of the time but it is a pretty amazing group of people that share some of the same DNA. I do not take this lightly or for granted as I know that not all families have the same type of type bonds that ours has.

I shared earlier that we spent the week together at Lakeside, Ohio following the Celebration of Life for my mom. It was so great to just be able to be with everyone. The great thing about our family is that we have some very talented individuals.

One of the things Chris and I did was make copies of my mom’s Brown Daze newsletters for all the family. I shared about those epistles here in this post and Chris suggested we get copies made to give to each family. I loved the idea and we found the local printer who could scan the 100 or so pages in, restore them to a more readable format, and make copies of them. I got a lot of thank you’s from my siblings and the “cousins” and even if they never really sit down to read them from cover to cover at least now they can if they want to.

Our niece, Rebekah, is a very talented and creative person. Not only does she dance professionally she likes to paint and is quite good at it. During one of the cleaning outs and moves of my mom’s she took some of her paints that my mom had in her stash. She had the brilliant idea to create something for all of us from those paints, Brilliant.

She used the acrylics my mom had leftover as the base for each one and then used other paints to create something that reminded her of each of the family members / couples. I absolutely loved this idea and each one seemed to fit the person(s) it was created for.

I spent last week at my sister’s place in Ohio helping her get her brand new kitchen settled. It was fun to unpack all the stuff she had stored and help her find the perfect spot in her brand new kitchen. We hung a few pictures and it got me thinking that I really needed to hang the picture that Rebekah made me when I got home. So that is what I did.

I decided to put it in my kitchen where I would see it all the time and be reminded of both her and my mom.

I love what she did for me. I can interpret it a lot of ways and I am. I asked her, after I hung it, if I had hung it correctly and she said it was however I wanted to. So I guess I did okay. I was thinking as I hung it horizontally that it looked like. a road and with it hung this way it was leading upwards (heavenward) which made me think of my mom. Perfect.

Life is busy. Life gets difficult at times and relationships can be tough but today I am so grateful for family that love each other, that want to spend time together, and that are just such a huge part of my life.