Cousins

This morning I was going through some old photos and decided to scan them. Not sure why they are so blurry. Maybe because they are old, or possible because I need to clean the scanner.

There's my baby brother at his Baptism party, and the other one is me and my cousins sitting on the stair steps. You can still see how happy we are. I'm the one right center.

Speaking of cousins, both my mom and dad were the youngest in their families, my mom was the youngest of five and dad had two older brothers. Most of my cousins were a bit older than me, but we spent so much time together. All of us lived in pretty much the same area and got together often. Summers we would go on vacation together in northern Michigan where my Mom's parents are from. Each family would rent a cottage and we would spend the whole week together playing on the beach, swimming, diving off the raft. We kids loved it because our regular bedtimes were not enforced and we spent hours playing tag around the cottage while the parents played cards, or sat together at the bonfire.

Both my husband and I are the oldest in our families, I have four younger brothers and he has four younger sisters. Most of our nieces and nephews are spread out over the country, Chicago, California, the other side of Michigan. And although we don't spend as much time with them as we would like, we do get together as often as we can.

Whitmore Lake

Little School house

The little school house by the side of the road

sit on the front step

shade your eyes

be ready

it's a long way home

Rugby Game

We went to watch our daughter play rugby last night. I know rugby is a really popular sport and people all over the world play and watch rugby games, but until last night I had no idea what was involved.
The game was at 6:00 PM last night and for some reason, my daughter needed to be there at 4:30, so I dropped her off, and went back home to finish dinner and wait for the game to start. Even though it's April now, snow was falling and it was really cold.
I went home and rushed dinner along so we could eat when my husband came home from work. By 5 minutes to 6:00, dinner was over and we were bundling up to go back to the field, lucky it was only a mile away. Last week they played in Ohio. I packed up the bowl of salad my daughter volunteered to bring and we were on the way.
By the time we reached the field, snow was falling, or maybe it was hail, but it was coming down horizontally because of the wind.
I'm not sure how many people should be on the field at one time during a rugby game, but it looked like at least 20 players for each side. The game started and everyone began running around in a large group, both teams. I had no idea what was going on and retreated to the truck to sit with my husband for warmth. Aboth this time, two of my other children showed up to watch their sister play her second game ever. They were much braver than their mother, or maybe not as cold, because they stood at the sidelines to watch the game.
Pretty soon they were doing what my husband told me was a scrum, although I had never heard that term before.
He said this was the most polite rugby match he had ever seen. Usually, he said, the players end up all bloody with torn clothing, something I was not crazy about hearing.
I'm used to watching hockey games, my sons all played, and couldn't believe they players were wearing no protection other than mouth guards! Where were their helmets?
The game ended after an hour and a half, and our team lost, but the look on my daughter's face when she got in the truck was priceless. Pink cheeks and sparkling eyes, she really enjoyed herself, and talked about the game the entire way home.
So what I will do now is go online and do some research on the game of rugby, maybe I can learn something new. One thing I did learn from last night's game was to dress warmer the next time and bring a blanket!

So many children!

This is handmade paper I did when I was in grad school. I used old jeans and beat them forever in a Hollander beater. It's very thin.

My husband and I have eleven children, I'm a Catholic (which really doesn't have much to do with it since I think the Church is mistaken about the Birth Control issue, but that's another story.

Right now, we have four of the children who live at home with us, one is married and the rest are on their own. Luckily for us, they live close enough that we see everyone almost every day, usually at dinner time.
When I look back over the years it seems impossible that we survived and flourished the way we did. Or maybe I need to give more credit to the children than I take for myself or my husband. All our sons (8) and daughters (3) are really nice people. I hear this all the time. "Your children are so kind and polite." And for the most part they are, sometimes they fight, argue with eachother, but if any one of them were in trouble or threatened by outsiders, they would be right there defending and supporting each other.
It's sort of like a party every time we all get toghether, which is pretty often.

And now that we have a grandson and another one on the way, it's even more fun. The baby gets so much attention when he comes over and he knows he's the center of attention.

So this is pretty much my introduction blog and my goal is to write something every day, famous last words, right?
Right now I'm in the dining room, and I can hear the tv in the next room, and the dryer running over in the laundry room. One of my daughters has just left for her Tuesday class, she goes to college. Her younger sister is sleeping. I think her plan for the day is job-hunting. My son, who is a senior in high school, is still getting ready for school. I think he stayed up too late watching the NCAA tournament. We were disappointed when MSU lost. Poor Spartans! But I'm the only one in the family who predicted they would get to the finals. And I have already dropped my youngest daughter off at high school.
My cat Lily is taking a rest on the couch and our other cat, who is really the kids' cat, hasn't been home in a few days, and I'm getting concerned about that. My husband says he will show up, the kids say he will show up, but I'm worried.