Family Is Family

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There is a Kacey Musgraves Song that perfectly encapsulates my family. The chorus lyrics make me smile every time I hear them:

Family is family, in church or in prison
You get what you get, and you don't get to pick 'em
They might smoke like chimneys, but give you their kidneys
Yeah, friends come in handy, but family is family

The thing is, even though I didn't get to pick them, I absolutely love my family, and one branch of my family converged on North Idaho this weekend. It was epic.

I have five girl cousins who are younger than me. As the eldest, I spent more than a large amount of time babysitting them. In fact, one summer I was basically their parent, we lived in a tent in my grandma's yard and in the lower hay barn. I was a blistering 14 years old and they were all from infant to 8 years old.

I love those girls.

Now, we are all older and they have families of their own. And when I say families, I mean families! My eldest cousin of the bunch, who lives in Virginia, is wanting to move back out here, so she found a business here to tour that is for sale, and the rest is family meetup history.

My cousins rented a massive house on a bay in Lake Pend Oreille, and they all descended upon North Idaho this weekend. My 5 cousins, their partners, and the 17 or so children they have spawned as well. Honestly, there might be more than that, it's hard to keep track as most of them are under 10 years old.

My grandma lives with one of the girls, so I got to see my grams too, and for the last few days I have been enjoying hanging with the chaos that is my wild and crazy fam.

There were games of cornhole, countless toddler arms shut in the front door, crying, screaming, laughing, buckets of bubbles, puppies frolicking about stealing Cheetos, and healthcare profession stories as most of the girls work in the healthcare industry.

One of the most fun things about the cuz's is they have absolutely no filters. At all. If you are faint of constitution or easily offended you probably wouldn't be able to cope, but they'd feed you anyway.

Because that's the thing about my girls, even though we are of the same generation, and all crusty adults now, they will forever be my girls,. I changed their diapers, wiped their tears, fed them dinner, kept them entertained, and even though it was a bit overwhelming for me at times as a young person, I truly love and adore each and every one of them and all their offspring. And they are beyond generous and wonderful human beings.

Even if they swear like sailors and snapchat pictures of each others biological functions to each other...

Oakley the Catahoula pup was the sweetest girl!

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And as most of the time, all of the images in this post were taken on the author's definitely in need of a long nap iPhone.

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