joey and i decided only a few weeks ago to make the trip home for a real quick weekend after i got an excited-to-the-point-of-hysterics call from my mom with all the reasons we just couldn't deny that we hadhadhad to be there. my cousin, my first baby, my little lys, my heart from way back, is graduating this year, and clearly i just couldn't miss her graduation reception. and bonus points for all, because my sweet cousin from my dad's side (who also happened to be one of my favorite people in all the land when we were little to play school/house/doctor with) was getting married on the same day! so there it was, decided on the spot, and when i was told my brand new job would start the week we were flying out, i had to say, "k, thanks a million. but i won't be there friday...," because priorities, you guys! but no trip back home would ever be completely fulfilled if we couldn't see the most amazing in-laws to ever walk this earth, so we begged (but didn't have to beg too hard, thankfully) them all to hang out with us on friday night, and alas, we got to see joey's family as well (but not nearly long enough, and why oh why does dc have to be so blasted far from south dakota?!). and for whatever reason, i will never remember to stop what i am doing for only a second and a half to snap a picture or twenty of our family together. i have a camera full of grainy pictures of the white house and every other high-profile spot in dc, but my family is what i really want in the end! i'm so sad that all i have of our time with joey's family are 7 different versions of this one, in which henry looks about at impressed as a slug to be hanging out in the sun.
and all i have of alyssa's graduation reception, although we were surrounded by more family than i could even name, are versions of this unruly hairdo atop one blindingly white exposed arm. but doesn't alyssa pull off hipster cool better than anyone else?
oh, wait. here's one at the graduation reception of henry on grandma's horsey. he didn't hate it.
the wedding overlapped alyssa's reception, so we missed the ceremony but showed up just in time to snag the last plate of potatoes, like the terrible party crashers we are. we surprised my dad and the rest of the family, so i passed my son around to make up for any hard feelings. i made him spend the most time with my dad because not only was he totally surprised when we showed up at the reception, but he's got plane tickets to fly out to see us this thursday so we're making him hang out with us two weekends in a row and i felt like we owed him as many big slobbery huckleberry kisses as possible. see you soon dad!
henry also got to smooch the pretty bride :)
my amazing mom drove all the way to the wedding reception to pick up henry and my brother's kids so we could have some quality sibling/adult time, minus our tired offspring. henry got to spend his first night away from mama and daddy at joey's mom's house, and mama got her first uninterupted/stressfree night sleep since henry's birth. winwin!
family is just my favorite thing there is.
it gets harder and harder to keep henry so far away from the people and places that made us who we are. incredibly, the second i step off the plane in sioux falls i feel like i never left, and the people we get to see while we're there feel as close to me while i'm there as if we lived right next door to one another. but we don't, and for now at least we are here, in dc, to build a life for our little family. and so we will celebrate these quick trips back to the midwest and look forward to the time we get to spend with our families when they visit. and from afar, we love them deep down to the bottoms of our toes.
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