I have extended family in Ohio and Pennsylvania. Some of my fondest childhood memories are of those reunions at Aunt Verona's in Altoona. Picking blackberries, roasting hot dogs, smashing pennies on train tracks. Seeing long lost cousins and getting the Spanish Inquisition from too many Great Aunts and listening to the women gossip and the men debate sports and politics...
Have a great time. :)
DShan
· 5 months ago
Oh, the Spanish Inquisition, which we just call being Irish Aunts, has already begun. No one cares about anything except my love life, apparently. Ugh.
verybadcat
· 5 months ago
oh, derek, darling, you know what to do. Give those irish aunts one of your stunning thousand watt grins and tell them the truth. you're making sure that when you find ms. right that you are damn well ready to be mr. right. they'll love it. :)
novelista barista
· 5 months ago
have a good time! my extended family is crazy. they all live in new york.... just a wacky bunch of people .. to say the least!
DShan
· 5 months ago
No kidding...where in New York? The city? Our NYC crowd is arriving today...can't wait!
novelistabarista
· 5 months ago
have a good time! my extended family is crazy. they all live in new york.... just a wacky bunch of people .. to say the least!
Lollygagger
· 5 months ago
That sounds so wonderful. I'm always jealous of big families because my family is very small. I have two first cousins. Yep, you read that right. But that said, I love my family so much, and as I get older I just want to spend time with them more and more. I guess that's what happens, if you're lucky.
DShan
· 5 months ago
Yeah, it does come with age...you just dig family so much. I do anyway. I'm so ancy for everyone to get up here...I stayed up til 4am last night cuz my sister was arriving. I'm already happily exhausted!
doniree
· 5 months ago
My god, that sounds magical! I'm sure you'll have a great time connecting and reconnecting with family and all. My entire family was here over the last week for little sister's wedding. It was amazing. I could say all kinds of things about my family, but they are - above all else - wonderful, close, loving, FUN-loving, hilarious, dance-floor-dominating, fascinating, and completely unique people. I'm always kind of overwhelmed and get kind of a high feeling after days spent together like this. Enjoy it and absorb the calm and the "OFF" you get to experience this week.
DShan
· 5 months ago
The calm is intoxicating. I love our family weddings, and it kind of sounds like ours are similar. Up here the dancing is removed and replaced with ill-advised late night runs to townie bars to sing karaoke. Yes, karaoke. It's quite embarrassing and quite funny.
raeleighbsg
· 5 months ago
they are all insane. truly. but we are all always there for each other.
but they're nuts.
i'm serious.
DShan
· 5 months ago
That's too funny. I feel the same way...totally nuts. Although you sound very serious:)
cooper
· 5 months ago
I love the Adirondacks. I was born in Vermont and though I moved to Australia when very young, not moving back to the US until I was in 8 th grade I spent some time in the Adirondacks at as a child vacationing with my grandparents. We went to school in what is summer here, but we has several weeks off and I spent a lot of it at either Saranac or Long Lake with my grandparents. I went there a few times in the summer during my NYU years too. I absolutely love the peace of it, the lakes, a cool little ice cream shop in Chestertown - near Brabt abd Schroon Lakes, the echo's during thunderstorms, a small lake beack towns and the time to read and think and hike and so on and so forth. I am so envious of you right now.
enjoy
DShan
· 5 months ago
Thanks cooper! It's so cool that you know this area so well...it's majestic. I get here and want to stay forever! Saranac and Long Lake are both so beautiful! And we totally have 'our' ice cream shop in little Lake Luzerne that's a must every year, without fail:)
lorettav2009
· 5 months ago
My mama's family is loud, boisterous, often inappropriate, hospitable, and wonderful. My grandparents started inviting my in-laws over on Christmas Day because they celebrate with us earlier.
DShan
· 5 months ago
That's pretty cool...I love when different sides of a family mesh. We have tons of that...some of my cousin's cousins feel like they are blood relatives now. They all come up here too!
alidubrow
· 5 months ago
That sounds just perfect. I wish my family did something like that but they are not the outdoorsy types. Sigh...
Have a great, relaxing time!
DShan
· 5 months ago
Your family seems awesome...and I say that just from pictures and your stories:)
nicopolitan
· 5 months ago
Woah I just realized I remember you posting about this last year. Time flies!
My extended family happens to be enormous. Upwards of 150+ people enormous. I have 38 first cousins.
It sounds insane, but large gatherings are always a random adventure, for sure.
DShan
· 5 months ago
It is quite an adventure. I've never actually counted our full extended 'reach' in direct blood relatives...it has to be in that range. This is all just one side of my family...on my father's I have another 15 cousins.
It was kind of crazy to write this post, because I remember writing about the trip last year like it was yesterday!
Angela
· 5 months ago
I'm going to a cabin this weekend with my family. I'll like it when I'm there, but I have to remember to bring earplugs and a sleeping mask because they wake up at the crack of dawn and my family is the type that doesn't have volume control. They'll be talking so loudly at 8:00AM that if I don't have earplugs I won't get any sleep.
DShan
· 5 months ago
Oh man, my Aunts are vampires. They stay up til 4am and they are up at 7am or earlier, yelling about something and planning the day. It's more amazing than annoying. But I hear ya.
For the love of God, please tell me you packed deodorant. I mean, I know you're gonna be all outdoorsy and devil-may-care for a week but really? do you want to get the reputation for being the smelly cousin? I don't think so. I mean, I have smelly cousins. Trust. Me.
My family does something similar, although only every five years, and we do it out on the family homestead land in the middle of NOWHERE North Dakota. We dig a hole and throw a pig in it and start a fire and there are kegs of beer and family so extended most of the younger generations never even remember each other (this is a party of my mother's cousins. and my grandmother had like, 12 brothers and sisters or something insane like that. it's crazy and huge) and we sit in the sun and get dusty and adopt new friends as members of the clan and play guitar out in the corn fields and golf on a makeshift course with makeshift clubs and play with babies and swat away mosquitoes... it's pretty much paradise. I'm never happier than when I'm there.
DShan
· 5 months ago
I brought deodorant and haven't used it yet. Oh well.
That ND trip sounds incredible and you should push to do it yearly. It bridges the gap and you end up so much tighter!
The fact that you do it at all is so important though.
All Comments
Have a great time. :)
already begun. No one cares about anything except my love life,
apparently. Ugh.
your stunning thousand watt grins and tell them the truth. you're
making sure that when you find ms. right that you are damn well ready
to be mr. right. they'll love it. :)
my extended family is crazy. they all live in new york.... just a wacky bunch of people .. to say the least!
today...can't wait!
my extended family is crazy. they all live in new york.... just a wacky bunch of people .. to say the least!
I'm so ancy for everyone to get up here...I stayed up til 4am last night cuz
my sister was arriving. I'm already happily exhausted!
like ours are similar. Up here the dancing is removed and replaced with
ill-advised late night runs to townie bars to sing karaoke. Yes, karaoke.
It's quite embarrassing and quite funny.
but they're nuts.
i'm serious.
very serious:)
enjoy
majestic. I get here and want to stay forever! Saranac and Long Lake are
both so beautiful! And we totally have 'our' ice cream shop in little Lake
Luzerne that's a must every year, without fail:)
tons of that...some of my cousin's cousins feel like they are blood
relatives now. They all come up here too!
Have a great, relaxing time!
stories:)
My extended family happens to be enormous. Upwards of 150+ people enormous. I have 38 first cousins.
It sounds insane, but large gatherings are always a random adventure, for sure.
'reach' in direct blood relatives...it has to be in that range. This is all
just one side of my family...on my father's I have another 15 cousins.
It was kind of crazy to write this post, because I remember writing about
the trip last year like it was yesterday!
or earlier, yelling about something and planning the day. It's more amazing
than annoying. But I hear ya.
Is there something wrong/weird/lame about livejournal? I've noticed people don't seem to be as receptive to it. Is there a reason? Or is it just that passé?
My family does something similar, although only every five years, and we do it out on the family homestead land in the middle of NOWHERE North Dakota. We dig a hole and throw a pig in it and start a fire and there are kegs of beer and family so extended most of the younger generations never even remember each other (this is a party of my mother's cousins. and my grandmother had like, 12 brothers and sisters or something insane like that. it's crazy and huge) and we sit in the sun and get dusty and adopt new friends as members of the clan and play guitar out in the corn fields and golf on a makeshift course with makeshift clubs and play with babies and swat away mosquitoes... it's pretty much paradise. I'm never happier than when I'm there.
That ND trip sounds incredible and you should push to do it yearly. It
bridges the gap and you end up so much tighter!
The fact that you do it at all is so important though.