Roots and Family

[picture by heather, it is beautiful and I think her caption on it on her myspace kind of inspired this blog]

So as I was working on my little sidebar over there where I told a little bit about me and Steve and made me think about having roots. Since I am an army brat I don't really feel like I have roots anywhere. I guess I kind of have some in Southern Illinois, that's where my parents live, and I lived there for four years, but do I really have roots there? A lot of my moms family is in Pope County, and our property is old family land, we have a cemetery there that has my ancestors buried in it, so that is pretty cool. I think I've decided that I have ties to that land, it will always be special to me, and so far that is the closest to roots that I have ever had, but I don't really feel like they are my roots, just ties.

[The picture of these daffodils (taken by my dad) is one of those things that makes me miss home, so I added them because they give me that warm feeling of belonging somewhere.]

As Steve and I were walking the other day we were discussing having roots, and Army brat that I am feel almost homeless, so I think we have decided to put down some roots here in Reno. Even though I can't seem to get any plants to grow here (I will have to blog on this subject at a later time), I think I can be successful getting some family roots growing, I mean I am pregnant so that has to count for something right? So anyways, roots, I think I will grow some in Reno and having Steve's family here definitely makes it easier. Having a set of grandparents, aunts, uncles, great-grandparents, and even some of Steve's aunts and uncles and cousins all right here in the same city. It's really nice. I can walk over to my sister-in-laws house when I am bored. Our child will get to see family members on a daily basis, I'm really kinda excited about this!
Granted, I don't want to leave my family out, I wish I could see them every day, I wish that my kid and Leslie's kids would be able to play outside together all the time and that we lived in the same city or maybe even the same street (and from reading your latest blog I think you would enjoy this too), its just not possible. You see my family is spread out all over the U.S. and we don't get too see each other very often. But I guess I should be used to this, that's what it was like growing up, we got to see our cousins at family reunions and stuff, and when we lived in KY/TN we got to see them on some weekends, but we just didn't get to see them all of the time, and that really makes me sad that my kids won't get to see their cousins (on my side) all the time either. But on the bright side, one day (I hope) our kids will have lots of cousins from at least one side of the family that they will get to hang out with all the time.

This picture is one of those pictures that always makes me happy, I love my sisters and miss being close to them]