My eldest niece has just celebrated her 20th birthday! She’s currently in her third year at Cornell University, although this picture is from her high school graduation. I couldn’t be prouder of her, and I’m enjoying (with some trepidation) her becoming an independent adult and exploring what she wants to do with her life.
To my giddy delight, she has just completed her 2nd trip out of the country. In general, my family doesn’t do a lot of travel out of the US, and so I encourage this sort of behavior as much as I can. She’s the first of my nieces and nephews to follow through.
Of course, she doesn’t take the usual route of a hedonistic, $1 a day tour of European hostels, No, she has to go do a Ropes Course in Costa Rica. Unfortunately, I don’t have any pictures of her hanging from the canopy of trees in Central America (I’ve seen them, so I know it’s true).
Ah well, it’s all in keeping with her athletic tendencies. In elementary school she was into gymnastics, high school was swimming, and now in college – rugby (ack!), camping/backpacking, and ropes courses. Above is a picture of her with some group hiking in Texas (second from the left). She claims it’s fun. Texas?
Now the embarrassing photos! Her mother sends me these prom photos to freak me out, since I (of course) try to keep her in my mind at about 10 years old. The nice thing about digital photos is that I can clip out the irrelevant guys and focus on the important part of the image. Embarrassing her is just a perk.
So, I’m basically just “braggin’ on” Amanda being smart (accepted into Cornell with something like a 5.9 GPA, and is studying International Agricultural Labor Relational Managerial Something or Other), athletic (gymnast, swimmer, rugby maniac, backpacker, ropes instructor, and I think Olympic Biathlon athlete), and beautiful (rats, my Protective Uncle Society oath prevents me from expounding on or joking about this topic).
And more importantly, I just like her. She’s fun to be around.
Happy Birthday, kiddo.
My long suffering family is aware of – if not appreciative of – my failings as a timely birthday observer. This translates to the fact that I tend to forget people’s birthdays, and am lucky to send a belated something. In this case, I am only now getting to posting about my niece’s birthday from December.
This picture is from the Solstice parade of 2004, and she had just joined in behind the main parade along with her Aunt Harriet. Her sister Eloise and I were there, also. You can see the confetti is still in her hair. Everyone had a great time, and I think her enthusiasm was best expressed by all the ideas she had about the entries she’d like to create. I think coming to Santa Barbara before the parade would be just the ticket for turning some of those ideas into reality.
Going further back in time (and she was a very cute kid), my favorite activity with my nieces are the surrey rides along the beach. I’m usually pretty worn out afterwards, because I think they enjoy it the most when they are the smallest. As they get older (and could be more help powering the darn thing) we don’t get out there are much. Aw well, as they get older there are other activities, and the memories are all good.
Okay, I’m sure this picture will just embarrass her, but I had to include it. Just look at the joy and abandon on that face. It’s one of my favorite pictures of Geneva, and its a part of what I love about having my nieces and nephews coming to visit.
And finally, a picture with her uncle and our (now deceased) dog, Gilda. Gilda was one of the dogs that showed her that not all dogs are scary.
My middle niece, Kimber, celebrated her 14th birthday on Wednesday. I sometimes refer to Kimber as my stealth niece, because the first impression you get is “cute and quiet”.
Last year, her school had a civil war era re-enactment event called the Blue and Grey Ball. She, her mother (my sister), and grandmother (my mother) made the dress in this picture. When the picture popped up on my screen in the email they sent, my jaw dropped to the floor. And now, even though it’s over a year old, this is my favorite picture of her. She still had braces on at the time, so it may not be hers.