Sisters can be super-cool amazing

Since we were Ruckers on Thanksgiving day, we got to be Wilsons yesterday.  We loaded up our food contributions and drove to Loco in the sunshine and wind.

It was a typical holiday meal for us.  All five of us children plus two spouses and three children were there at my parents' house.  My grandparents made it down.  There were no extras this year, no friends, no girlfriends.  Just us.  The food was perfect right down to the stuffing that was my mama's mother's recipe.  Also typical of my family, there was a house project going on.  It is a rare year that my dad hasn't been building or remodeling something.  The addition he built for me when I had given up on Jack.  My grandparents' cabin.  This year he was putting a hardwood floor in my addition that has now become a huge family room. That means some sawdust, a really loud nail gun and and a planer on the porch.  There were stories, laughter, and squealing of small children.

I think one of the highlights of the day was my sister.  Rachel and I have an odd sibling relationship.  I am nearly 20 years older than her and never lived at home much after she was born.  I was almost grown when Ian was born, so he and I never got fuss either.  That means that they never bit the foot off my Barbie (thanks Tucker) or got barbecue sauce on my friend (and thanks Ben).

Ra has always been a quirky kid - artsy, tomboyish, funny sense of humor. In the last year, she has really blossomed into a gorgeous young woman, but she is still quirky and artsy.   Really the only difference is that she now wears lipgloss to ride a horse and young men drool when she walks past.  Yesterday, she let me read her children's story that she is writing.  It was about two small children who go plum picking with their mother.  She had notes in the margins about what pictures should be for certain paragraphs. I felt like I was reading my childhood or perhaps about when I have taken Bell berry picking.  It was vivid yet written in language that would appeal to a child.  The story might have been too real for city people who don't know about cow skeletons in pastures, but perhaps that realness is what appealed to me.  It reminded me of  Robert McCloskey's  Blueberries for Sal.  It was not surprising that sis wrote something worthy of any child's bookshelf.  She has made a lot of my jewelry.  I have a pile of artwork that she has sketched or painted for our house.  She is just that super cool kind of kid.  It is just that she isn't a kid any more.  She is the kind of girl I want Bell to grow up to be.