I'd like to introduce you to the sunshines of my life. On the left we have Connor and the right is Katrina. They are a year apart, which is interesting because their mothers are also a year apart. The other interesting thing is that though I am related to both of them, they are not related to each other :)I've tried over and over to figure out the best way to relay the story of the weekend but without some background knowledge and perhaps a flow chart, you're not going to get it. My dad Rick and his girlfriend Regina gave their daughter Debbie up for adoption I think when my dad was 18. He married a woman named Lauri later and had another girl named Michelle, then divorced, then married my mom, Nora, and had me. Debbie has three kids - Taylor, Parker, and Connor, and Michelle is getting married this New Year. On mom's side, before she married my dad, she was married and had 2 kids, Jodi and Paul. Jodi is married and has one daughter - Katrina. Okay. So. Now we can go on, quick, before I have to explain my cousins-who-are-really-like-my-siblings-because-their-moms-died.
This weekend, Debbie brought her kids, including the cuteness above and the two dudes below. I was so nervous driving in for dinner on Friday night because it had been YEARS since I'd met my neice and nephews and an internal debate raged all of Friday - do I stop at Toy Joy and get them all presents? What the heck is the right thing to do here?
I ended up just driving to NB and the night pretty much ended up being a huge reacquaintance with me and my sister, and running around playing music and being crazy with my neices and nephews.The next day we all went to Wurstfest during the day after watching UT play Baylor. In the mean time, my sister's step sister (Jodi's dad's third wive's daughter) and husband came into town, so at the table in the Biergarten we were this huge, crazy mess of family.
I would say that I don't know how other families handle this sort of spaghetti of family, but actually I do. From what I know, a lot of people who have messes of steps and halves and such don't really get on that well.
As my half sister's step sister put it this weekend, after going through hard times herself she could see how these kinds of things happen...that our parents all did things out of love and created this huge tangle of a generation that decided to throw out conventional wisdom, erase the boundary lines and love each other regardless of what our parents did. For example, Kat ended up staying with Connor Saturday night, something my sister was way conflicted about due to the nature of the strained relationship between my mom and dad. But you know what? Everyone was cool with it, and best of all we didn't need to explain the whole nasty story in a language 6 and 7 year olds would understand because really, they would just understand that they couldn't see their new friends and their parents/aunts/uncles wouldn't tell them why. Anyway, it was a really amazing weekend, one that I am still very much processing. I'm looking forward to a renewed relationship with my sister and us all growing closer through the years.
In other news, my sometimes-intimidating-because-he's-so-dang-awesome supervisor called me "intern extraordinnaire" today.
Point Christina.
And PS hanging around Debbie's kids totally solidified my desire to have three kids. It was chaos, man. I loved every minute of it.
3 comments:
How much fun! We missed Wurstfest this year but can't wait to take Caroline next year.
My word verification was wives. How often do you get a real word?
I almost NEVER get a real word! We definitely missed y'all but the 'fest will be far more enjoyable with Caroline older :)
Of course I don't mind! And what is "Twitter?" Is there a way to send a message on this thing, or is everything just in comment form. As you can tell, I'm a new player :)
No worries about this weekend; I was busy, too! played both nights...ugh. Don't worry about it; I'm not :)
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