Happy Birthday Dylan!

It's been about 30 years (*ahem*) since this photo was taken of my brother and I, and I can still remember that couch! It was in our living room until some time in high school when my mom finally replaced it. What I'm even more exited about is Dylan's (yes, he was named after Bob) little yellow shirt and those awesome plaid overalls. Aw!

Dylan and I were always close growing up and we usually got along really well. We played dress up and skate boarding, swung in the branches of the giant weeping willow in our back yard. Dylan would spend all of a Saturday morning setting his GI Joe's up just right in the living room, and my Barbie (who was of course riding a My Little Pony), would swing through and crush them. We built forts and played Atari, ate Pac Man cereal and went swimming all day. Being a little kid with Dylan was pretty awesome.

Now we both have our own kids, and he lives in Colorado while I live in Oregon. It makes me a little sad that we can't spend more time together and that our kids can't grow up together. I miss him a lot. But that just means a lot of extra fun every time we do see each other!

I love you Dylan! Happy Birthday!

Nostalgia

"Surely She's a Mermaid," 2008 by Lea Keohane. All Rights Reserved.

My little brother, Dylan (yes, named after Bob), is 30 years old. Ever since the clock turned on his February birthday, we two Aquarians have both been in our 30's and let me tell you, that is just weird to think about. As I write this, Dylan and his daughter, my niece, are on an airplane on their way to come for a week-long visit. It is making me a bit nostalgic this morning.

When we were kids, at almost exactly 2 years apart, we were really close. A lot of my childhood memories are at my dad's house, which is weird because we only spent every other weekend there. Like a lot of divorced families, though, one parent has to deal with the day to day discipline, errands, homework, chores while the other parent gets to try to make up for missing out on it all by having a mini-vacation with few rules every other weekend.

Every other weekend. We would eat at Wendy's, rent a ton of videos and video games, and spend the weekend at our dad's playing in between watching all of those videos. We would spend whole days in the 3-foot-tall above-ground swimming pool until our sides were cramped and Dylan's shoulders were covered in painful burns and water blisters, until I had a deep tan and my stepmom would call me her little island girl, until we decided to cover the yard with a plastic drop-cloth and call it a slip-and-slide (not quite the same, let me tell you).

Then my dad and stepmom (now ex-step) bought a house in Colorado's foothills, and while the schedule stayed the same, our stomping ground grew. We would ride our bikes around long curvy roads to the store to buy candy, play with the goats and feed the chickens, run around on the giant hill that was nested up against the back of my dad's property. On that hill was a cave that we would dare each other to walk through. At the other end of the cave was an opening through which we could see the 2-lane-highway far below.

These are some of the best memories that I have of my childhood. There were times when I was in high school and was much moodier, that I didn't want him around as as much, and as we became adults and life got in the way we often didn't stay in very close touch. But we have always been close. I can't wait to spend this week with my brother.