company

Our family reunion (for my maternal grandpa and grandma's families) starts Sunday afternoon, so people are starting to arrive from out of town. Yee-haw! One of the best parts of hanging out with relatives now is everyone meeting, fawning over, and commenting on the ever-expanding wardrobe (ever-expanding, in part, due to their bringing her things!) of the first baby we've had in our immediate and pretty immediate family in over a decade. That'd be Zoralee. Besides the joy of simply having a baby around, we're also reaping the health benefit of building our immunities by exposure to each other's germs via her ears. What did we ever do for fun and health before her?!

Zoralee doesn't hand out smiles willy-nilly. She is a very cautious girl and looks a person over real good before deciding on her excitement level. She has a long week of decisions ahead of her.

"Story Time With Zoralee"

(practicing for her syndicated talk show)

We also just got to spend two days with Cousin Autumn, from my dad's Alaska side of the fam. Gosh, it was good to see her! This is a girl with whom many of our travels and adventures and dreamings are intertwined. She is a kindred spirit in so many ways. Crud, we've plunged ourselves into glacially-fed rivers for the shock of it (stupid), spent days and nights and days and nights hiking through the Alaskan wilderness (rad), dug ditches for water lines in the sweltering Guatemalan heat (jewel in crown), dreamed of communal living, sustainability, building cob houses, and running hostels (coffee-induced highs). Can you imagine how thrilled we were to see her? Can you imagine what a drag it was to let her go this morning? Booooooo for that!

Luke and Rachel both think Zoralee looks quite a bit like her.