portland family

Jennifer and I went to Portland this weekend for Mom's cousin Sharon's funeral. She was Mom's favorite cousin, our surrogate auntie and also our family historian. We reconnected with and met tons of extended family - second and third cousins, with lots of removals and twice-removals. It's crazy to walk into a place, look around at everyone and think, "Hmmm. Yeah. We're related."

The funeral was hard but good. They played "Softly and Tenderly" which was a hymn we had at Mom's memorial. Go figure. Then we headed to Sharon's sister Rena's house and just hung out with family. Jenn and I stayed in Sharon's house which was really neat. She had tons of old pictures on the walls, including this one of our Great-Grandma & Great Grandpa, Emma and Garrett. We went to a bar that night with a bunch of our cousins - as Jenn said, "Drinking with the kinfolk!" It was a good time. Portland is such a beautiful town too. I really felt Mom's energy there. She grew up just a few hours away. We're excited to reconnect with everyone. Sharon was sort of our link to that whole side of the family (Mom's Dad's side), so we're happy to have reestablished that connection so we can stay in contact. More pictures of our trip are here.

I'm in San Francisco for just a few more days. Jenn and I are going to have a girls' day tomorrow - shopping and lunch. Then I'll fly to LAX on Wednesday where my stepmom Melissa will pick me up and we'll drive to Idyllwild. I'll hang with Dad & Melissa for a few days in Idyllwild, then head to LA for a week before going back to New York.

Meanwhile Oona is totally walking! She takes five or six steps at a time and it's so cool to see!