Arts and Crafts

It’s been a while since we’ve seen family.  Jenn’s parents came to visit in April and we went back to Colorado to celebrate Dan’s graduation in May, but we’ve been getting homesick lately.  So as the dog days of July descended upon us, we could not wait for my sister Jules, her husband Mitch, and Brynn and Jonah’s four cousins to come visit.  It was going to be a great chance to catch up with my sister and her new family.  Her family isn't really new to her, but is to me.  Being in Denver, while she’s been in Wyoming, we’ve visited a few times, but there’s only so much time you can hang out during a three-day weekend or the holidays.  Especially when we’re usually splitting time between all of the family we have back in Sheridan.  Bottom line, I always felt a little shorted so I couldn’t wait to get some quality time with the Crafts.

All the cousins, minus Emmett...it's hard to
get them to all look at the camera.

For weeks beforehand, Brynn ran around saying, “My cousins are coming!  12 more sleeps!  11 more sleeps!! ........ Two more sleeps!!!  One more sleep!!!!”  Yes, her reaction deserved every one of those exclamation marks.  Jonah didn’t really know what was going on, but would trail behind his sister, yelling randomly and thumping his chest.  Their excitement was infectious and so we found ourselves counting down the days...er sleeps, until the Crafts were here.

With 10 people in our house for a week, it was going to take some finagling.  We gave Jules, Mitch and  baby Emmett Jonah’s room complete with queen-size air mattress.  The other three kids were in the basement, splitting two beds between them.  Cozy, but with all those people packed in, it sort of reminded me of home.  I grew up with five younger siblings and sometimes the additional stray human my parents couldn’t say no to.  So if I’m not yelling over at least four other people and participating in five conversations simultaneously, it just feels too quiet. 

I’ll quickly cover all the things we saw, because for me, the real story took place at home.  We saw the Museum of Natural History, where Nora was shocked it was free, Jules made a terrible joke about the “elephant in the room” and we saw a little piece of home in the form of dinosaur bones from Wyoming.  We got a babysitter and took the Craft kids (minus Emmett) to their first ever professional sports game to see the Nationals play the Mets in celebration of Henry’s 7^th birthday.  We sat four rows back from the left field wall, Jules and Jenn drank a two foot tall margarita (each) and Nora came an inch away from catching a home run that bounced off the foul pole.  We went to the zoo on a ridiculously hot day.  We bought Henry a new shirt (to be explained), I had to carry Brynn a quarter mile uphill to get to a bathroom and we had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches right outside the gorilla enclosure.  We went to Mount Vernon and the kids got to sift wheat, pet horses and lambs and throw rocks into the Potomac.  While we were recharging from all of this at home each day during naptime, the Crafts went to Annapolis, the Lincoln Memorial, Einstein Memorial and the White House.  We had a great last day as Steph and Peter came up and we just hung out before the Crafts had to head back. (Gasp)  I need to sit down.

A quick explanation/apology to the Crafts.  Every single one of them except for Mitch got sick while they were here.  A really bad stomach bug had each one of them tossing cookies at some point.  Funny how different the germs can be 2000 miles away.  For Henry, it caught up to him on the way to the zoo. So he needed a new shirt.  Sorry Crafts!

After all of that, I got to play video games with my new nephews/niece, make fun of my sister with my brother-in-law and make my newest nephew smile for the first time (for me at least).  It was a really great time and rediscovering my sister and her family was the best part.  When you’re six years older than your little sister, you move on with your life and sort of assume they haven’t.  For a long time, my picture of Jules was frozen as a goofy 16 year-old kid, mooning the neighbors, getting caught for trespassing and having epic battles with her Spanish teacher.  While I was graduating college, starting a new job and buying a house, surely she wasn’t actually moving on too?  Seeing her making sure all the kids had packed everything they needed before each day in the big city, fussing over Emmett like any good new mom, and coincidently her struggles leaving Emmett with a non-family babysitter for the first time made me realize that my baby sister is all growed up.