New Family!

What an awesome weekend! It turned out to be way more than celebrating Nicole's graduation. I got to meet so many new people, and most of them were family members in one way or another. It's difficult to explain the exact relationship, but I'll try. The people that I have grown up knowing are my grandparents, and my Grandma's brother, Jim Teegarden and his second wife, Gail. This weekend I met Uncle Jim's first wife Jeanie, their 3 sons (Mark, Chris, and Dan), and all of their wives/children who happen to be very close in age to us! As soon as we met our newfound cousins, it felt like we had known each other forever. We spent hours talking and laughing. The whole night I kept thinking how awesome it would be if every Christmas, Thanksgiving, and Easter was with this branch of the family. Everyone got along fantastically even though they haven't seen each other since I was a little baby. At 11pm our parents dragged us out of there, but I could have spent the entire night hanging out with them. It's so sad that I just met this branch of my family and it's doubtful that I'll ever see them again. It was incredible that they came just for Nicole's graduation too. Some of them live there in Terre Haute, but many of them drove from Cincinnati (3 hours), Indianapolis (1 hour), and Columbus (almost 4 hours)! So I got to meet our entire Indiana/Ohio family. By the end of the night I got most of the names and faces straight, but not all of them. We also got to meet some of Aunt Gail's daughters, who aren't actually blood related to us. They were so much fun!

Nicole had met most of these people when she moved out to Indiana to go to college. I'm jealous that she got to have all these amazing family gatherings even while she was hundreds of miles away from our own little family. We don't have any family in Denver so I'm kind of isolated here. And when she moved to Columbus, she met our cousins who happened to move there to attend The Ohio State University. Mary is exactly my brother's age and she's getting married next month. She invited Daniel and I to her wedding even before we had met! Her brother, Matt, is a junior at Ohio State and he's pre-med. He also happened to play the clarinet in high school marching band just like me! We spent a lot of time talking about research and science and graduate school and all of that. So Mary and her husband-to-be (also named Matt) and her brother Matt all live in Columbus where Nicole just moved for her new job. I am so jealous that she has these cousins to hang out with. I am afraid I will never see them again, but I am going to try really hard to go to their wedding next month. And it's just another reason to go visit Nicole.

I also got to see my sister graduate from college! They do this whole processional through campus led by bagpipes which makes it all very dramatic. The ceremony was incredibly long, with only 400-500 graduates, so I can't imagine how long ours will be with 1800 graduates! I cheered really loud when they called her name. And she looked so cute in her cap and gown! I can't wait to put mine on and take a million pictures too. I finally got to see her campus. She lived there for 3 1/2 years and I had never been there before. I doubt we'll ever have a reason to go back, so this was my last chance to see Terre Haute and Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology. It was a crazy packed 48 hours, and it was so much fun. It was definitely worthwhile to travel out there. It was even better that my brother got to come. I think it would have been so sad to meet all this family without Aaron. The only thing that would have made it better is if Daniel could have come. But I'm really hoping he could come to Mary's wedding, or at least maybe some of them could come to our wedding in December. I'll have lots of people to add to the list now!