Wilkommen Meine Familie!

Since my blog well is a bit dry and all I can think about is visiting family fun time in the next couple of weeks...that's our topic today.


Last year at Chris and Lindsay's rehearsal dinner. The purple peeps.

My older brother, and eldest of all seven sibs, Chris, and his wife, Lindsay, arrive tomorrow at noon. They've been to Paris, Arles (near Provence), Villefranche Sur Mer (near Nice) and are now cruisin' around in Salzburg, which my brother described as "utterly wonderful".

He also asked several questions about taking the train from Salzburg to Graz..will it be obvious where they need to switch, will the train say "Graz" clearly, etc. and apologized for his abundance of questions, but "I have made it this far and have been on 11 trains, 3 planes, 2 buses, countless cabs, and bicycles. Danke."

Then he asked what 'fahrt' was since he's been seeing it everywhere and it makes us juveniles laugh. (fahrt = "ride" or "drive")

If you've never done the travel Europe in two weeks thing, it can be a bit confusing. Managing luggage, languages, train stations, ticket purchases, times, etc...can be like a part-time job while on wacation.

Last summer when I went traveling with Lindsey, we experienced a bit of this as we were going somewhere new in a new city almost every day. Ben, her boyfriend, had just gotten into Germany and was trying to take charge like a man does and looked at the map and said "well, this bus goes to Montag bis Freitag..is that where we want to go?" and I had to calmly say "um, that means Monday through Friday". Welcome to my world, Ben.

And, probably right now, my mom, dad and Molly, the youngest of the seven siblings are on a big arsch plane to Paris!

They'll probably meet up with Chris and Linds sometime in Vienna before heading on over here Saturday night.

I'm perked. Have I ever told you how fun it is to have such a big family? And how much I miss them living over here? Chris and Molly (oldest and youngest) are 20 YEARS apart. And, yes, we're all from the same parents..and, yes, we're Catholic. (and my mom's the oldest of 8 and dad's the oldest of 6, so we're not short on cousins either!)

Molly doesn't even make it in to many of the pics I'm about to show you...

The first three. Chris, Amy & Carolyn. Foreshadowing of fat arm problems for me for life.


Jimmy comes along. We're on dad's diesel Mercedes.


i can't get over how much that girl on the far right looks like my niece, Ceci!
(She's her mother, of course)


One of my favorites. Jimmy rarely wore pants.


Adding more: Erin and Andy join the fun. Looks like we could be in Austria, but we're at the Broadmoor in Colorado. (and I LOVED those lace up the leg sandals) Dad's sporting a beret, k. Mom loved that puff painted cactus ensemble and her puffy perm to match.


Lots of kids makes for good pyramid pics.




Getting older (oh, hey Molly) and posing for a picture for Mom's U.S. congressional run.


Me and baby Molly circa 1994.


Me, Mom and 'baby Molly' soon to be tearin' up this town. (circa 2009)

What can I say? I'm very, very blessed.
And can't wait to share my Graz with this next batch of fam!