Amy's Blog

Families come in all shapes and sizes.  The older that I get, the more that I realize that the important people in life are not necessarily those that I grew up with or who raised me.  I am close to my extended family as I’ve spent a lot of time around my grandma’s siblings and nieces and nephews and their families.

One of the things that I inherited from my grandma is that we claim people we like as relatives regardless of bloodlines.  For instance, she had a neighbor who we all called Grandma.  Her name was Grandma Meinhardt.  Even my grandma called her Grandma. I had no idea until she died that her real first name was Mabel.  She was a very dear friend of our family.  Grandma also accepted her in-laws as relatives right away.  She loved inheriting nephews when her little brother’s eight daughters started getting married.  She remembered everyone’s anniversaries and birthdays and always sent cards.

Claire was a dear niece of my grandma’s…Grandma loved bragging about Claire, her niece who was a nurse practitioner.  I actually forget that Claire was married to grandma’s nephew, so she is actually related by marriage, accept for the fact that they aren’t married anymore.  But she’s still one of my favorite cousins and always will be!

One of my all time favorite things about Claire is that she really doesn’t seem to let much bother her, and she cares so much for her four daughters (3 that she helped raise when she married their dad, and one biological).

Claire invited me on her annual New Orleans trip in June and I happily accepted!  The funny part of this trip was when a friend of mine asked who I was going with.  Now, I really don’t have a complicated family tree, but when you consider the fact that I’m so close to my extended family and we start getting into Grandma’s nieces and nephews and their kids, it can get a little hard to follow.  So, I found myself laughing as I was explaining it.

Claire, and the oldest of the three daughters who she helped to raise, as well as the daughter’s biological mom and step dad were going to be going on the trip along with another one of our cousins.  And then me, the random second cousin (I think?)…Six very different people with different personalities from various branches of the family tree living it up in the Big Easy!  Half of us had been before and the other half were newbies!

We had an awesome time and the entire trip I kept thinking about how grateful that I am to be connected to these people and how they each have a unique life experience that I can learn from. It was also fun to experience New Orleans with people who had never been before!

Here I am with my unconventional family at a nice lunch at Commander’s Palace, home of the 25 cent martini! I won’t rat people out and tell how many we drank!

Another great trip in the books and another reminder of how grateful that I am for my extended family!