Happy Anniversary Mom & Dad

Today is the day my mom and dad got married, some time back in the last century. I was born 5 days later. A few years after they got married.

I think this picture may be the last time all my siblings, nephews, spouses and mom and dad were all together at the same place at the same time.

My brother has changed wives since this picture was taken. I'm holding nephew Jeremy. My one longtime blog reader may remember Jeremy from a couple days ago, playing on snow on Tabletop Mountain.

I got gas today. As that one longtime blog reader may remember, whenever I get gas I call my mom. So, I had 2 reasons to call. That Happy Anniversary thing, and the gas. But their cell phone generated an out of range message. Which must mean they are out of the Puget Sound zone. Maybe they are on the Oregon coast. I know they were staying on the coast for 8 days on their way back to Arizona.

In that picture we are up in Lynden at my aunt and uncle's house for the annual combo Christmas/Grandma's Birthday Party. The aunt and uncle no longer live there and grandma has been gone for a long time now.

My relatives ended up in Lynden because my great-great grandpa came to America from Holland in the 1890s. Along with my great-great grandma and their two kids, one of whom was my great-grandpa. Once they all got to America they tried several locations, including a very short stay in Texas, just north of where I now live.

I think they were in Ohio when word came of a town way out west, about as far as you could go back then, in America, without leaving the country, this area up in the new state of Washington, where a lot of Dutch people had moved to because it reminded them so much of Holland.

So, my great-grandpa was sent, by train, to Lynden to see if it would be a good place to move to. He stayed through a summer, working on a farm. He returned to his mom and dad and sister eager to get them to move to Washington. He brought them a piece of bark off a fir tree to show them how huge the trees are. He brought them some apples and told them there were plenty of apple trees. He told them about the berries that grew wild and free. And all the farmland available.

And so they moved and started a farm. That farm exists to this day, though no longer owned by relatives of mine. The road that the farm is on is still named after my family. And no, it is not Jones Road.

Now I'm sitting here thinking to myself, my ancestors went through so much to get the future generations to one of the nicest places to live on the planet. And then I, the oldest son of the oldest son of the oldest son of the relative who decided to move to America, moved to Texas? What's wrong with me?

Anyway, Happy Anniversary, Ma & Pa. Hope you're having fun wherever you are today.