Family or My Week VII

♪Brothers and Sister and Cousins, Oh My!♪

I grew up with a large extended family. My mother and her sisters were all very close and as such there were times we all got together for several days to a week. Nothing is better than a Thanksgiving with close to 20 people in a big old house capable of holding twice that.

There was a pond with a homemade slip and slide that must have been close to one hundred feet long. In the summers it was the best thing ever. Running as fast as you could and throwing yourself headfirst while screaming as loudly as possible the whole time was the epitome of fun! And trying to break the speed record of the older cousins always gave it purpose!

My uncle and two of my cousins were hunters. The deer they shot put food on their table. I remember one Thanksgiving seeing three dead deer hanging in the yard from trees, by their hind feet. I asked my uncle why they were hanging there and he patiently explained the whole process of draining the blood and why it was so important.  To a nine year old, that was big stuff!

Once I hit my teens, our families moved away from each other.  But each summer I would go and spend a week with one of my cousins. We would wile away the days playing games, doing chores and reveling in the fact that we were old mature teenagers and everyone had to treat us seriously now.  One game we played was Pass the Pigs.

We learned the game from one of our older cousin’s boyfriends. He had a pony tail and a British accent, so of course he was the coolest person in the whole world. Well, he liked Pass the Pigs, so we liked it too! We would use candy skittles to bet too, until “somebody” spilled the beans to her parents and we were forbidden to gamble any more. I still have my set 🙂

So family has been important to me my whole life. Which is why Mrs B and I bought plane tickets this week to go to Georgia in the fall to help celebrate my Mom’s birthday. 

Who knew that buying plane tickets would unlock such a welter of good memories? I know not everyone has good family memories and I don’t take mine for granted. I have been blessed.