family thoughts

My mom is gone to California. She left on thursday and will come back on the 27th - so a 2wk trip. She is spending about a week with my Tia Neomi (by dad's sister) and then a week in Indio with her siblings. Its got me thinking how for a good time we (my family growing up) went to California every christmas - usually spent most of our time with my dad's family and then a day or two with my mom's side. Then we kind of stopped going - at least didn't go every year. I've been thinking about Elia and her being away, yet she's come home every Christmas. Except this year she's not making it for Christmas, but for New Years. So I'm wondering. . . I suppose there will be a time where Elia may just stop coming home. Will I start going over to visit her? We haven't made it a priority to visit my husbands sister who is away. We didn't even really visit Abe and Deb when they were away in Seattle area. Will it eventually get to the point that I have to say "I haven't seen my sister for 3 years."? I hope not.

It's got me thinking. My last post -me crying with Rachel. I really think it was a moment of "i don't really know you". I don't know that I intentionally spent time with all my other nieces -but somehow I feel connected to them. I know growing up I didn't feel like I really knew my extended family. I remember thinking "my nieces and nephews are going to know me. I am going to know them. not just know who they are and that they exist but really know them" So what am I going to do about Elia and Mark's kids? I have this relationship goal for my nieces and nephews, but how can I make it a reality from afar? I suppose letter - blogs, email, making the most of the Christmas visits (I do feel like I knew my Tia Neomi -because that's where we spent the bulk of our time). Here I am thinking of all this, and Mark and Elia don't even have kids yet! But I think it is so easy to become a disconnected family. I don't even feel so connected to my nieces and nephews on Jorge's side and they are just in the Tri-Cities. I suppose it's because our priority has been here.

We decided to be more intentional with our time this year. We've actually started this month of December. In our life group we are going through a series by Andy Stanley called Taking it to the Limit. One session talked about our time and how all of our time is going to spent. We can't save it up and when we're on our death bed say "oh, wait. i can't die I've been saving up some time" Whether we plan how to spend it or not it will be used up. So we decided that we should spend some more time with the Najera's. So we are devoting one Friday a month to spending with them. Not much in terms of a month or how many days a week we see the Lara's. But hey its better than just chancing it and hoping that somehow we spend time together. So we had our first friday two weeks ago. It was fun to say "we're coming over" and Poncho saying "I'm not home I'm on my way from Yakima" then us saying "well we're doing a little shopping, but we put 'spend time with Najeras' on the calendar and we'd like to spend time with you" (see i know what you are thinking - you should have called ahead. tried that and it got nowhere except for "not sure what's going on friday. just call us friday" - they're not big on planning ahead) But they're response was fun "oh, wow on the calendar! Ok we'll be home in half an hour and we'll have pizza". Turned out that the ladies were having an end of year get together at their church so they scrounged around for a ticket for me. I got to go spend time with my sister in laws - and watch a very funny fashion show given by ladies from their church - really a good level of excellence in their performance and the event (you know me always looking out for ideas). Then I spent time talking to my nieces - found out that there was a dance exhibition for Jordana's dance team the next day. I even chose to wake up early to go see her perform!

Anyhow, enough family ramblings. Oh yeah! Our church Christmas Variety Show is this Wednesday at 7:00 PM. Don't know what that is? Well come on out and check it out.