Family Visit

My half-sister and her 3 kids are here visiting my parents from Western Washington. I have never been super close with my sister- she is 13 years older than me and was raised by her mom and step-dad over in the Seattle area... so we never spent much time together. But now that we are getting older- and thanks to the magic of Facebook- we are becoming a little closer.

Needless to say, I have really enjoyed this visit with her, and my nieces and nephew are just a delight. My oldest niece, Cassandra, plays basketball for Bellvue Community College, and my nephew, Nicko, who will be a junior in high school, is being looked at by U of Washington to play football. My littlest niece, Monica, is also an athlete.. and she's better then her brother and sister! It's awesome, I'm so proud of them- and not only are they great athletes, they are GREAT kids. Super nice and friendly and so excited to see their baby cousin, Ali. It makes me so thankful for family and so thankful we live close enough to spend at least some time together. I'm going to make it an effort to be a more proactive part of their lives, as well as have them stay connected to Ali. After all, they are her only cousins!

...And on another note- here is a picture of the first produce from my garden!!!

...I took this from my cell phone- and I'm not sure about the black and white... but this is a huge bowl of ITALIAN GREEN BEANS! Yummy, they were so good- Ali was even double-fistin' them!