Our Family: Best Friends and Brothers

Cassie has recently become painfully aware of the need to have a best friend. She has asked me several times who my best friends were when I was a child. Every time she asks me, I risk sounding like a total nerd to my nine-year old and respond that my brothers and sisters were always my best friends. Cassie huffs and says, "Come on, Mom. You had to have some real best friends!" Last summer, we spent time with Aunts Mary Lee and Susan and Cassie started to understand how sisters can be best friends.

We were fortunate to spend five days with Uncle Dave. He did everything that an uncle is supposed to do and more. He let table manners fly out the window, along with the kite that he bought the girls. He took the girls kite flying, even though the wind was strong enough to knock him over. Dave resurrected tales of some of our greatest childhood exploits. He even took Cassie to the scene of some of our sledding triumphs.

Trying to launch the kite

Run over there and get it. The cactus will only hurt a little.

Forever Photogenic

Smile!

Trying again with the kite


Testing the wind


Uncle Dave, are you sure those are the right rules?

One morning, Cassie got out of bed at 6:00 a.m. to walk up to the top of the mesa with Dave and me. It was a tough climb and the altitude was affecting all of us. Dave distracted Cassie with stories of winter sledding. He first told her how we used to celebrate a fresh snowfall by taking our sleds out around 10:00 at night. Our reasoning was that we could sled freely, without having to worry about traffic. If conditions were right, we could sail from the top of the hill, all the way down past the church. This is about 1/2 mile. Of course, this didn't always work. We were occasionally interrupted by cars. When that happened, we had to fling ourselves off the road into the nearest yard, as fast as we could.

Dave also showed Cassie where he and his buddy used to ride a toboggan. He explained that they would try to make it all the way down the hill and then jump across the road at the bottom of the hill. Dave chuckled as he recalled how the toboggan one day shattered into pieces. "So where were your parents?!" asked Cassie. I'm sure you're probably thinking the same thing. Well, it's not as though we said, "Hey, Mom and Dad. We realize that it's dark outside. But, we're going to try sledding down the middle of the road and hope that we don't get run over. Is that okay?" Similarly, Dave never said, "Mom, can you give me a ride to my friend's house? We're going to try to ride his toboggan through a cactus covered field and then vault across the road. Sound good?" Honestly, I don't know what we told our parents. So, like a couple of idiots, we just assured Cassie that things were safer back then.

Thank you, Dave, for not telling the girls about how we made wine in the basement, or about how we used to hide in the creek and throw snowballs at cars!

It wouldn't surprise me at all if the girls were to start asking for a brother!