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12/27/2004
great weekend with family and friends
I'll post photos later, but wanted to write a bit about my great weekend. I took the Amtrak Thursday night from Chicago to Dearborn, MI. It was about a half hour late and my parents picked me up.

Friday I spent the morning and much of the afternoon with my brother, sister-in-law, nephew and niece. Skylar seemed to have grown a lot in the two weeks since I'd seen her last. They say she'd put on another third of her body weight. She's awfully busy eating and sleeping and growing!

Friday later in the afternoon I spent with Laurie and her husband, brother, sister-in-law, nephew and niece. After dinner Laurie and I met my parents for church. My mom got a chance to tell the story again about how when I was 2 and a half I carried the baby Jesus down the aisle to put in the nativity set. My dad got to tell the story about me around the same age asking about the people lighting the candles and carrying in the bible. He told me that when I got older I could become an acolyte. I reportedly told him, "No, I'm going to be an architect." Turns out I've done a lot more acolyting than architecting.

Saturday my mom, dad and I went to my dad's brother's house (my uncle, aunt and two cousins and my aunt's mother) for brunch. It was fun to see them. They were off to Florida right after we finished eating.

Saturday afternoon my mom, dad and I went over to my brother and sister-in-law's house and spent a few hours with my nephew and niece again and had a wonderful meal. Max warmed up to me quite a bit by the end and was asking me to push him in his new riding digger, "Un-cle Ted push it." Very cute. He was also very sweet with his little sister. He's a very loving little guy!

Today my mom and dad and I went to visit my grandmother (mom's mom). We'd seen her two weeks ago for the family xmas but she's gone downhill since then and can't walk at all anymore. She has dementia and can't remember anything from one minute to the next, but she doesn't seem to be in any real discomfort. She noticed the snow outside 3 times while we were there. Afterwards we went over to my mom's brother's house to see him (my uncle) and my aunt. I hadn't seen their new house. They're really preparing for my grandma's death.

Over the weekend I also got a chance to talk with my mom and dad about how they met and then what happened from then through my birth and then their wedding later in the summer, then the adopting process that took about a year. I read all of the recommendation letters from my dad's friends and colleagues recommending him as an adoptive father. Technically my mom had to give up her parental rights as part of the adoption (and then basically immediately gain them back as an adoptive parent) which made her nervous but all turned out fine. At that time, if was rare for an unmarried woman to have a baby and there wasn't a procedure in place to have my biological father either give up rights or to have been declared to have abandoned me (as would be true in a similar situation today).

category: family personal