Birthdays.....

Birthdays have always been a big deal in my family and every March 1 I wake up and think my brother would have been ......this age.  Today Keith would have turned 66 and that means I will be turning 68 as we were 2 years apart and the next brother came 5 years later and the next 5 years after that.  He would be so excited at the thought of another little granddaughter soon to arrive and at how smart his daughters are!!!  I can't believe we have been missing him for over 31 years.

This was at my very selfish cousin's house - Terry is the name.  My mom is hovering over our left making sure we don't touch the toy train as my cousin kept his toys locked in his bedroom closet but would let us peek in.  Needless to say we never see him and he's a couple years older than me - not a nice cousin!.  My Grandma is on the right.

 My Grandpa and Grandma Sylvester and my other nice cousin Shawn, me and Keith when he is 6-7 months old.  He was frail when he was born and at that time called a "blue baby" and I think the fear is that he would not live through babyhood.  He did!!!

 So Italy - In 2002 we had a 30 year wedding anniversary family trip to Italy and as always I had detailed travel info and called the trip "Sagrada Familia" which means Holy Family - poor choice of words for this family!  I still can't believe we could get 7 people from all over the place to this country house in Italy with no problems...many different arrival dates, departure dates, flights etc.

 This is what we looked out on and it was gorgeous.

 So 14-1/2 years ago this was maybe in Florence or maybe in Venice or maybe in Rome but in just a few weeks I'll be again hitting Italy with Amy's mom Kathy who is shown studying a map beside me.  This time 6 women will be gathering and again from different places but same flights.  Oh the poor souls that will sit nearby on those flights - we'll for sure go for the free wine!

So 2015 is looking very busy and every day I give thanks for a whole bunch of things and that's good.