A visit to my aunt's farm

Last Saturday, we piled into my sister's minivan and headed out to my Aunt's farm for a family reunion. Connor was more than a little excited to be going to an actual farm, though he was a bit surprised there were no horses there.

Aren't we a good lookin'



and BIG



bunch? And I swear, this is only a fraction of the true glory known as my mom's family. While all of my mother's siblings made it, several of my cousins (and their children - I think all 20 of the kids in my generation has a child of their own at this point - and all but one has not just a child, but children) - were unable to make it due to various events in their lives.

No matter, the horses were soon forgotten when he realized there were kittens - kittens! - in the barn - a few of which were too slow to escape the clutches of a brood of elementary school girls who were hot on their trail.



A barn that has hay piled up all over it that allows one to climb into the loft, which might possibly make a certain grandmother very nervous when a certain grandson starts climbing.



A barn that has a swinging rope that might possibly be the same rope that was there when I was young, though I do not believe I ever took a swing on it. You see, I'm the "little one" in my family. I have a cousin who is actually one month younger than me, but he lived on the farm and was about twice my size, so he got to hang with the big kids. I stayed inside the farmhouse for the most part, because uh farms? You might not know this, but they are dirty. And I was little. Really little. And scared that I might lose my life if I hung with the big kids. They swung from ropes, after all, and burrowed through tunnels that my cousins created in the hay. And did I mention that hay is dirty and scratchy? Yeah, I was in the farmhouse.



And where was Helen during all of this?

She was climbing the fence...



And playing with kittens...



And holding me with a death grip when that cow had the audacity to "moo"...



And making friends.



All the while clutching her tiny baby.

And even though I've been to this farm many, many times, there was one surprise for me when I got these photos back. Who put that big a** on top of my legs? Seriously?!? I'm warning you now, you might wish to avert your eyes.



Whoa! I'll leave you with this photo instead so you can sleep tonight. And this little piece of advice. If you are my brother-in-law with a very fancy camera that can take photos from about 1 mile away (maybe further), aim for my FRONT, not my BACK, preferably when I am SEATED.



Elaine