Generation next

The cousin crew got together last night, for the most part, with my cousin Rachel in town with her four boys. (Soon to be five!)

The Lahr cousins were absent, but almost all of the second cousins were there. We only lacked Amelia, who apparently has a more important social calendar. Grand times were had, not necessarily including this group portrait. This is one of the images that didn't include Connor doing the rabbit ears on one of his cousins, Daniel crying, and has Grace actually in the photo. (Alexander facing the camera never quite happened.)

Elizabeth is the oldest of this group, and always will be, of course, as she is a month older than Grant. Grant at 10-1/2 is five feet tall (a few inches short of his mom!) and Elizabeth is about 4-9. Robert and Parker are about a year apart.

Mary Catherine Coleman's great-grandchildren, from left to right, if I remember correctly: Connor Reed, Daniel Reed, Parker Linder, Colleen Coleman, Elizabeth Coleman, Michael Reed, Alexander John, Robert Coleman, Augustine Linder, Grant Linder, Matthias Linder, Grace John.

As I commented to Rachel, now I have to put some effort into remembering which Reed kid is which. Before, seeing them every couple of years, they would change so much in between visits that it wasn't worth trying to retain. The Reeds are 9, 7, and 5. Rachel and the boys are heading up to Duluth for the Hon family reunion and eventually have a 25-hour drive back to New Hampshire next week.

Mom said something to Elizabeth and a couple of the others about winning the prize for attentiveness. Predictably, Elizabeth asked what the prize was, and I told her that when she and others look at these photos in 2047 she can gloat about how attentive she was. Colleen and Grant were good photo subjects as well. And I can bet that Amelia's absence will cause some head-scratching years from now. (Was she born yet? Wasn't that after we moved to Minnesota? Did we still have the blue car? Robert, we never had a BLUE car!)