Always Sunny and Sweet . . . .

My ONE sister; my ONE brother-in-law; Their ONE son; His ONE wife; their ONE oldest child! That makes them rare jewels in my heart and I do treasure them.

Aunt Carla is your great aunt. She was born in Houlton, Maine on January 13th, 1949.  One thing that irritated me when she was a newborn was when people came to visit and they oooo'd and aaaaa'd over her and then turned to me and asked, "Brenda, what do you think of your baby sister?" I was 5 1/2 and this was my FIRST sibling! And I would think they were pretty dumb for asking me something like that with an obvious answer. OF COURSE I adored her. I was very, very proud of her.

Once she was old enough to interact, she was always sunny and sweet. Whenever she turned her little smiles on, it was almost like the whole room was illuminated with her glow. She is still like that. I love her smile! She is a fine and gracious woman and beloved by everyone who knows her, as far as I can tell. What a Grammie she is -- those children are her pride and joy! 

Uncle Phid is a lot of fun, has a sense of humor that doesn't quit, and is a fantastic grandfather.  He has so many skills -- he does carpentry, cement work, landscaping, has done welding, and has worked in farming. He has a wonderful gift for visualizing what a project will look like and just doing it.

I made this collage from photographs in one of Mom's albums and I just told Mom that I'll need to borrow a couple of her albums again in order to represent all the families on this blog.  

In the upper left hand corner are pictures from their wedding; the three little kids in the square photo are our Jonathan and Carla's son, Kent. Kent is holding Bethany here. I don't know if the little picture to the right is Kent's kindergarten or first grade picture. I love the family picture of Carla, Phid (Philip), and Kent. Great looking family, right? To the right of that is a picture taken at their 25th wedding anniversary celebration. Next down (I think) is at Kent's wedding (they will have to tell me for sure). And the picture at the bottom right was taken the night Dustin was born (Thanksgiving, as I recall).

Uncle Philip and Aunt Carla have been very involved in music ministry, teaching, and in Christian camping over the years.

Kent and Laurie live in Caribou at the time of this writing and have two more wonderful children: Kyleigh and Kaden. Kent has dual citizenship and he served the US with the Army in Iraq. He is multi-talented with skills in social work as well as carpentry. Laurie is in social work and currently works in the school system. They are great and loving parents. I am very impressed as they are training them in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Great kids! We'll have more pictures to share at some point.