Family - Blog 5: My Younger Brother

When I was growing up, my parents always used to tell us that "your siblings should be your best friends because at the end of the day, when you've grown up and you've moved away, you're still going to have each other. All those other people are (for the most part) just transients in your life."

While I have certainly endured my fair share of transients, my younger brother - Kameron - has always been around. In fact, he has been around so long that I can hardly remember my life before he existed.

My father was a military man, and so we moved around a lot. With moving came this 6 month period of having no friends. My older brother kind of made his own way in the world, but Kam and I stuck together like glue. We were each others best friends. We spent countless hours building card houses, playing gameboy side by side, drawing ant houses, watching Darkwing Duck and The Wild Thornberries, riding our scooters or roller blading, playing beanie babies (and even barbies). We got the flu at the same time. We went for walks, went to arcades together, went to see bands together, went to movies together...We went to the same schools, drove the same car and even had apartments that were right next door to one another (well, mine was above his). We even worked out together.

Not too much has changed :) when we are both home, we like to do everything together. We have our own way of communicating (almost like twin talk) and we like to keep in constant contact. We like to play card games and board games...or even just make up games (only now we have other siblings who get to be involved in the festivities).

We are each other's biggest fans, and we can never stay mad at each other long (as in longer than 5 minutes). We can ask each other for help and know that we can tell one another anything without being judged.

I have always loved spending time with Kameron - and the fact that he's been gone on a religious mission for two years has absolutely killed me every day (but only because I miss talking to him every day and seeing him at family events). I am so excited for all the great experiences he has had on his mission, but I can't wait for him to come home!

I love my little brother!

Family - Blog 4: My Older Sister

The relationship I have with my older sister is not the traditional older-younger sister relationship. Because we grew up in separate households, we never had to endure any of the "that's my sweater" or "I saw him first, he likes me" type of conflicts. Because we were both totally surrounded by brothers in our separate households... I think we both probably imagined what it might be like to have a sister, living in the same house, to talk to.

For me, I know that sometimes I wished I had a sister to trade clothes with...or to give me hand me downs. There were times when having a sister to give me makeup or hair tips would have come in handy. I would have told a sister about my first kiss. It's not that brothers aren't great...they just don't care about that kind of stuff :)

I think that because my sister and I were raised far apart from each other, we have really come to appreciate the relationship we're able to have now. We don't have years of contentious memories that keep us from trusting each other. I can tell her all my secrets if I want, and know that they are locked up tight in the sister vault.

The most exciting thing about having an older sister is that she has all sorts of good advice. She has been where I am now. She can share in the excitement of getting married. And when she goes through childbirth she can tell me "it's not as bad as you think."

At least...that's what I hope she'll tell me. Either way, I know her babies will be cute and I will get to be an aunt ^_^

My older sister is beautiful and I love her!

Special Announcement!

I know I am deviating from my "Family Blog" series to write this...and I apologize to those waiting to read the "Older Sister" blog which is certainly over-due...... however..... I have big news!

I'm Engaged!

Now sit back, relax and enjoy the story of Matt and Nikki:

Matt moved in across the street from me when I was 16. At the time, we were living in Sagamihara Japan. Matt's older brother was away on a deployment, and his sister in law was pregnant with her 3rd child - so he moved there to help her out in lieu of his brother's absence.

Two of his nephews are the same age as one of my younger brothers, and so my little brother referred to Matt as "Uncle Matt." Now - before I had met him I had assumed "Uncle Matt" was in his forties (because uncles are never hot or young...right?) I had about 1% interest in meeting him.

Then, one day, everything changed. After about 2 weeks of my mom telling me I'd really like "Uncle Matt", I found myself across the street returning a dish (or something) to their house. I had been in there by myself when low and behold, Matt walked in. He wasn't old. He wasn't gray. He certainly wasn't what I'd expected an "Uncle Matt" to look like. He was about 23 and a carbon copy of a young David Boreanaz.

He said, "Hi."
I said, "Hi... You must be 'Uncle Matt.'"
He said, "You must be Kam's sister"
I said, "That's the first time anyone has ever referred to me as Kam's sister (because I'm older than him). Nice to meet you."

Then I ran full speed across the street and back into my house. As soon as I landed in the living room I exclaimed, "I love him, and I'm going to marry him." My parents laughed - they knew exactly who I was talking about.

Of course, I was 16. He was 23. He had no plans to notice me any time soon... so I was the weird girl who lived across the street. I talked to him when I had to, avoided him the rest of the time, and sometimes peeked out the living room window to see what he was doing/if he was in the yard.

Me being me, I had no plans of letting him escape easily. On the day he left Japan, I managed to get him to fork over his email address. That felt like a victorious moment. I knew that as long as I kept communication with him at all throughout the rest of my high school career, that I'd be able to make my move later in my college career.

That's exactly what I did. We exchanged the rare IM's and emails. After my first couple of semesters of college, we exchanged enough IM's that I felt confident enough to ask for his cell phone number. Then I started bombarding him with texts which he hated but couldn't stop responding to. Gradually we became phone-call buddies, and one day I informed him of my plans to get on a plane to visit him. He didn't really get a say in the matter.

On March 7, 2008 I walked off the plane, straight up to Matt and kissed him square on the mouth.

----

The rest, as they say, is history....

Except a certain day last week - which I'm going to tell you about:

On Tuesday, Jun 2, Matt and I decided we wanted to go to Nantucket (as part of a long road trip we are currently on). We spent the morning walking around, renting a scooter, riding around the island, visiting a farm/market. We packed a picnic and took it to one of the many gorgeous beaches on the island. After lunch, we decided it would be fun to walk down by the water. After we'd walked a distance (I was feeling uncomfortably far from our stuff), Matt stopped me. He started acting kind of funny, and I thought maybe he wasn't feeling well or wanted to have a serious conversation.

Instead he started kissing me a lot, which is also unusual for him, and so I started laughing. Out of nowhere he pulled out a little box with a gorgeous ring and said some romantic things followed by, "will you marry me?"

I said, "Is this for real?" and then I said, "yes."

I was completely taken by surprise, and just when I thought I was about to cry I was overcome with a wave of smiley-ness. Instead, I jumped and danced around the beach. :)

And now, we are officially engaged. Ta-da!