We are family........

Hi there Bloggers!

Are there any Bloggers out there anymore in this instant-update era of Facebook?

It would appear that I missed blogging in March all together. At least that’s another “first” that I can cross off my bucket list. Life has been busy (as usual) in the Blogmuggle household. Lots of time has been spent at work, and a lot of other minutae that is so incredibly (un)interesting that I can’t recall any of it.

THE most exciting event actually happened in April. April 2, to be precise.

GG turned 21!!!!!.

She celebrated with a select group of family & friends at Newcastle Harbour Foreshore Park, enjoying meat-laden barbeque-style fare on Good Friday. She was dependent upon her very cool mirror-style sunnies to protect her tender eyes that resulted from the previous night's soiree with friends at her home. It was her best buddy's 21st birthday as well..... Happy Birthday, Morgan!

The weather was fabulous! It was a fun affair, but I am mildly distressed with the fact that in this era of fabulous technology, no-one had the thought of capturing the event on celluloid (or microchip) for posterity...... We had a video camera on hand, and almost every person over the age of 12 had a mobile phone with a camera... none used....

Except for a few choice piccies.....

These were taken by my sister-in-law, Lisa. These kids are all cousins. This is all of them from my Mum’s side of the family, except for my absent cousin’s absent daughter.... My dad’s side of the family have no interest in our little family. Sad, but true. Actually, they have no interest in each other..... Even more sad, but true.

Grace, Eloise and Laura:

Eloise, Laura, Khiara, Ebony & Grace:

Rhys, Jack and Sam:

Eloise, Grace, Rhys, Sam, Laura & Jack:

Eloise, Ebony, Grace, Laura, Rhys, Sam, Laura, Jack ,Zachary & Khiara:

I’m so glad that Lisa took them: at least we have some photos of all the cousins together.

It’s hard to all get together these days. Zach, Khiara & Ebony are my cousin, Alyson’s brood. Ally’s Mum and my Mum are(were) sisters: Ally & I were more like sister’s than cousins when we were children, even though she’s almost 10yrs younger than me. Lisa married my only sibling, Glen, when he was 41. I will be forever grateful that they were blessed with their 3 gorgeous kids. Mum’s only surviving brother, has 2 children: only one of them has children and they weren’t present on the day. There is some good news: there are twins expected to arrive at the end of June (good one, Andrew!), but I doubt we will see a lot of them, probably only three times a year. I have cousins that live in the Netherlands that I have never met, the offspring of Mum’s younger brother who passed away in the 70’s. The poor bugger developed cancer and died shortly after his mother. Neither knew about the other, as we had no idea where Uncle Harry was. The Salvation Army finally found us. It allowed Mum & Dad to track down my remaining cousins and meet them. I don’t really know much about them, though, and despite a few internet forays on my part, I still don’t.

I grew up with a very large and involved extended family. Leisure time was spent with my Aunts & Uncles (whether or not they were “blood-relations”), cousins of the first, second & third varieties. Our family included “In-law” cousins such as fellow blogger, Lisa B, her sister (and now new-found sister, Kerry) & cousins. After school, weekends and holidays were spent with a myriad of people that were simply acknowledged as “family”. There was fishing, camping, simple play & games, music & laughter. There was never much money that I saw, but it didn’t matter. There was conditional acceptance of everyone and their circumstance. There were no skeletons in our closets: they were out there, loud & proud.

Beloved is part of a big family too. But there’s no photos of them from GG’s big day. There’s 2 new babies due there as well in the next few months. We never even managed to get around to singing the “Happy Birthday” song....... the day was over all too soon. But there was some great cake courtesy of GG's birthday buddy, Morgan's boyfriend the baker, Toby..mmmmmmmmmm

And that’s enough from me for today. Until next time......

xoxoxoxoxoxo