Vacation Scrapbook: Visiting My Sister's Family

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One of the most wonderful parts of our California vacation was getting to spend time — five full days — with my sister and her family. It has been four years since we last saw them. We had never met her two adopted kids, and they hadn’t met my two youngest.

They live in a beautiful community in the mountains about an hour from Reno, Nevada. It was very pretty there. The dads and kids spent a lot of time exploring nature while my sister and I went through some of my mom’s things.

The cousins (12 of them ranging in age from 2-13) got along so well!

They have a zipline and trampoline on their property.

And they have chickens!

The girls doing their nails:

My sister and I going through old pictures:

Exploring nature:

My brother-in-law is a forest fire fighter. His son created this sign that was put up as a billboard! Here he is posing with it:

This was my Mom’s wedding dress. My daughter is modeling it here:

This is the trailer where my Mom lived, right next to my sister’s house.

Here is a display that we had at my Mom’s memorial service. My family (with nieces and nephews) sang “Come to Jesus” by Chris Rice. We sang some great hymns that my Mom loved. Some friends of hers sang another beautiful song as well. My sister shared some wonderful words. It was a great blessing to meet some of her friends and to hear how she had affected their lives.

And lest you think my kids are little angels–here they are after the funeral. My niece really didn’t want to wear this dress because she said it made her feel like she was in jail. 🙂 My son wet his pants, and all I could find for him was a diaper in the church nursery. And I think my 2-year-old decided to roll in the dirt.