Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Great-Grandma Barto's 95th Birthday Party

Last weekend we went to Tennessee for my great-grandmother's 95th birthday party! There were 60 people there from all over the country- California, New York, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Maryland, North Carolina, and Florida.

5 Generations of Women: Millie Barto, Marie DiGiovanni, Pamela Wentworth-Tyler, Melanie Chandler, Sydney Chandler

Millie Silverthorne Barto has 8 children: my grandmother, my 6 great-aunts, and my 1 great-uncle. While I lived in NY, I grew up with this family, but many I had not seen in over 2o years!! It was amazing to see my family that I had not seen in over half my life, to see cousins I had played with as a child, and to see the youngest family members (that I met for the first time on Saturday) playing with my own children. It was an experience so deeply amazing, I have a hard time putting words around it. Sydney and Ethan were thrilled to meet cousins they didn't even know they had! It made me miss living near family, and made me sad for my kids as I realized they are missing out on these rich extended family relationships.


Grandma Barto blowing out her 95 candles (with a little help from Raven and Mason!)


Our trip home was detoured as there was a big rock slide on I-40 outside of Asheville, which will take several months to clean up. We ended up stopping off in Elizabethton, TN, where Jeff lived from age 4 to 4th grade. Here we are in front of his old house. We drove through Boone to get home, and with the nice weather, the whole drive was bliss (minus Sydney getting carsick!)

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