two more from the road

Second stop, Marietta, with my Georgia kin for family love, meeting the much bally-hoo-ed new girlfriend and Aunt Nancy's special friend. My cousin Constance (not pictured) recently wrote on our family blog/website that she loved our family, that she loved how we close we all are and that we come a'visiting more often than not, and with that, I must concur. My mom and her sister, my Auntie Nancy made sure we were together, all the cousins, as often as it could happen. Every Christmas; the random Thanksgivings; legions of New Year's Eve galas at the house I grew up in - long dresses for all the girls; weeks spent every summer shipped off to mammaw and pappaw's house in KCMO; the cabin in Balsam, NC for a weekend here and there, growing up I always thought our family was huge, but really, it was just full and frequent.

Next stop, western North Carolina, about 20-30 minutes from Waynesville, I think. We spent some seriously lovely time with Mark, Jessica, Ben and Maiya and what a gorgeous mountain-y time that was.

Maiya is the dirt-eating-est little one I have ever met. I mean really, she seeks out the red clay chunks and just pops 'em in her mouth, you'd think they were candy. For this shot she lovingly smeared her gorgeous face and fingers, after I retrieved a pretty large portion of the clay from her mouth. The LaShells live in the mountains without blinds on their windows and with a garden in front. We walked down the street, confident that we'd hear a car if there was actually traffic coming crunching the gravel. We got sprinkled on talking to the neighbor as his goat wandered to the fence, headed back up the hill, and marvelled at the mouth-full-of-marbles-ness that is part of the true western North Carolina rural mountain accent. Magdalena discovered the joy of kale after she and Ben harvested a bit for each meal, and is counting the days until we plant our own.