We Are Family

One of the great things about coming from a large family is that you are constantly making new friends, right within the confines of your own family tree!

I come from one such family ... stretching its branches across this wide state of ours. And I have many friends which I also can lay claim to as family.

One such friendly family member is my cousin, M. I didn't know her very well growing up. She is a couple of years older than I and she grew up in a town about an hour's drive from my home town. But fate (& our sprawling family tree) had more in mind for us than the yearly greeting at the family reunion.

At the start of my junior year in college, I had a bit of a housing crisis. My previous roommate situation had changed and I was searching for a place to live. After a round of calls through the family hot line, we found out that I had a cousin in town that was also on the search for a roommate. SWEET! SAVED by the family tree!

We lived in her grandmother's old house. There was a LOT of room for just the two of us, but thankfully it didn't keep us from getting to know one another over the course of the school year.

I am so very proud that M is not only my cousin, but a dear friend as well. So you can imagine how thrilled I was to get to take some pictures of her and her 2 beautiful kiddos a few weeks back. M asked me about some pictures as a birthday surprise for her husband, D. We took a little time to coordinate days and times so that we could keep the surprise ... well ... a surprise! But oh was it hard for me to hold back on these pictures! Let me show you why ...



As you can see ... this is one of the prettiest branches on my family tree!



I know that D enjoyed these pictures almost as much as I enjoyed taking them. And I hope that next time around he can join us for the photo fun and get in the picture too!