Idaho

(I'm the bigger on in the red dress; my sister is in front of me in the green. Obviously neither nor my cousins look like this anymore.)

My parents are visiting this end of the country right now (it was much cheaper and easier to fly them out to see my sister down in Utah and me than for all of us to go to Arkansas). My mom is originally from an hour south of here, so after a week with my sister, she's visiting HER sister halfway between us. They thought it would be fun to gather relatives in the area to see them, since it's been years since my parents were in Idaho. So tonight we went down to see/meet various cousins. It's like this in my family: my parents were quite a bit older when they married, so most of my cousins are older than me, and some even have grandchildren! Since my grandparents died years ago, each of my mom's siblings is basically their own tribe. There were only a few branches represented, but still, a lot of people! (There were also three sets of twins there. Somehow we missed that!) None of my cousins who are close to me in age were there, but now that we're all adults, it's been nice to get to know them for their interests. One of them studied art and has worked in graphic design ever since, which is nice to hear. That you can make a living in art, I mean. They're the cousins who write novels and symphonies and draw and do computers, which is something I can definitely relate to. My boys were particularly fascinated because they love atoms, and my uncle who hosted the get-together used to be a nuclear physicist at the Idaho Nuclear Laboratory. (Arco, Idaho: the first city entirely powered by nuclear energy!) So anyway, that was fun. My parents are coming up here later this week, and since my mom went to college here nearly 60 years ago and hasn't been back since, it should be fun to show them around. Probably nearly everything looks different now.