On Saturday, my brother and his girls and my sister’s family all came for the day. One of the nights we flew kites that Uncle Paul and Aunt Connie brought our kids.

Just like in the storybook!Īnd all the while, huge progress was made on the wonderful porch addition. Then she and Elsie went and weeded ALL of my potatoes. We were all learning and growing!Īunt Annie brought her rhubarb pie and Aunt Louie made Asparagus on Toast for her brothers with asparagus from our garden. That was a big deal for me! I fed dozens of people breakfast, lunch, and dinner and it went well. By the last day I even remembered to have the coffee brewed when it was time to serve dessert. (And a barnyard of animals!) And even though I would never say I am a natural at this sort of thing, I felt like I grew into this role over the last week. My job was to keep everyone fed and hydrated. And they were all getting to know each other, even in the summer heat and their most exhausted moments. Rory kept telling me at night, “I am learning so much, and Ivar is learning right alongside me.” My uncles were mentoring my husband and my son. Ivar was a part of every minute of this project and worked diligently.

I just think that’s worth pointing out.Īnd then these generations worked together. AND! In both families there are two girls born in that six year spread between the oldest boy and the middle brother. In the pic at the top they are matched up: Uncle Wayne and Ivar are both the oldest by six years, then the others are a bit under two years apart. Super interesting to me, the spacing of my boys is the exact same as the age spacing between my uncles. My mom’s three brothers Paul, Wayne, and Carl came to build our new porch, along with my brother-in-law Jedd. Talk about hugging! …You’d have to go through at least four different hugs to get from the kitchen to the front room. Rory kept pointing this out and would quote lines from the book that perfectly matched the joy of having our relatives here for the week: “And then it was hugging time.

Our relatives came up from Kentucky, Alaska, and Minnesota. We lived this storybook over the past week.

They left when their grapes were nearly purple enough to pick, but not quite.” The relatives helped with house projects, weeded the garden, prepared meals, and mostly, enjoyed being together. “It was summer of the year when the relatives came,” the book starts out. It’s a darling book about a family visiting their relatives in another state. We have a favorite children’s book in this house called The Relatives Came.

And the relatives came