The Romney Women Gather

In the last few years I have found myself having a lot more contact with the Romney side of my family. I see cousins more than I used to and when my aunts come to town we try to at least have a meal together. It's been really wonderful. Last fall my two Romney aunts were here and my cousin Luanne and I joined them for dinner and chatting and also some knitting. All four of us love to knit - we have even talked about going on a knitting cruise some day. I doubt that will ever happen, but I do love being with them. That night we decided it was time to make some more formal plans for getting us all together. We thought it sounded like a good idea to have one small reunion with just the eight women in our family - two aunts and six cousins. And then try to also get a bigger group together with husbands and brothers and maybe even kids. A big task, but hopefully doable. We made a list, picked some jobs to get started on, and hugged goodbye for the night. 

The plan was for us to have a women-only retreat in January and then a whole-family gathering the following summer. But then the worst thing happened. Three of my four female cousins, who are sisters, each was diagnosed with breast cancer over the next few months. They have varying levels of severity and different action plans with each, but it was a huge blow to our whole family, especially theirs. At the moment I believe they are all doing well, but we decided that the highest priority would be to just start with the women-only gathering and to go ahead with the last weekend of January as planned. 

We thought it would be fantastic to take the chance during this cold and dreary time of year to head south and take over the home of my Aunt Rosanne who lives not far outside of Las Vegas. However, due to the ongoing treatment of one cousin who lives in Idaho, we decided to move the party to Boise. I know, Boise doesn't sound like the most fun place to go in January, but it really wasn't about the destination either. It was about being together. We talked about how we just wanted a weekend of knitting. Pure knitting! 

As the date drew nearer, I realized that I had some growing anxiety about the trip. (How unlike me.) The things I was nervous about were first of all...were we really going to just knit all day long? I mean, sounds like heaven to me but maybe actually it could get kind of boring. And also it occurred to me that we as cousins and aunts had never travelled together. Travelling always sounds like fun until you find out that two of you like to sleep until noon and the rest of you feel the day has been wasted if you haven't hit three museums by 10am. You know? So who knew how this would be?

Happily, I had the chance to drive to Boise with my oldest cousin Luanne - she's the oldest child in my Uncle Mike's family. Mike is the oldest of that generation, then came my dad, and then three younger sisters. The oldest sister passed away when Troy and I had only been married a couple of years. The only other sibling who has passed is of course my dad. Anyway, I'm very fond of Luanne. We have so much in common and have only really started spending time together over the past couple of years. She lives in North Ogden, so we decided it would work well for me to take the train from SLC to NO, meet at the station, then head to Boise from there. I wondered if we would have enough to chat about for four hours. Those four hours flew by so fast - we talked our heads off the whole way. When we got to the Boise area we made our first stop at a woman's house who is a dear friend of Luanne's little sister Carole. Carole was spending the afternoon there, and we picked her up. 

Can I just say? I ADORE THESE WOMEN. Carol lives outside of Seattle - we spent a night there on our way home from Seattle the last time we visited (like SIX years ago). And the three of us are really the only church-goers in the family. Which is just great - I love everyone so much. And also there is something extra special about the time I get with Carole and Luanne. I just feel so connected to them, and they make me laugh so hard. So I was grateful for our little prelude time together.

We arrived at the house - just a nice big house in a nice neighborhood that my aunt found on Air BnB - a great size for us. And my sweet sister was already there - it felt so good to get a giant hug from her. And then we just proceeded to have the most wonderful weekend! I really didn't know what to expect. Or what to plan for. Some people brought gifts for everyone - Luanne brought these little card holders and some really fun quotes to put in them. Carole brought her own farm's honey and lavender. Aunt Hannah actually embroidered personalized gifts for everyone. Some people got little pillows and some people got wall-hangings. I myself got a chicken and I'm crazy about it. Aunt Rosanne made these ceramic arm-chairs for each of us to represent the fact that we all have figurative "empty chairs" in our lives - people we love who are no longer with us. And the empty chair makes a safe and cozy place for us to picture them and remember them. Each of the chairs also came with a tiny pillow printed with the Romney family crest. Guess what. I had no idea that our family has its own crest, but we do!

My chicken and my armchair now sit on my bookshelf and I look at them lovingly every day.

The gift-giving session was quite tear-jerking actually.

My aunts did a lot of planning I wasn't expecting. I should have pitched in more but I thought we were just going to sit around and knit! There was a lot of cooking - Rosanne did most of that. I did convince her to let me do one lunch for everyone. Many games were also played - I didn't know everyone liked games so much. The best one was a dice game with a whole counter-full of prizes to be won with the winning rolls of the dice. I came away with quite a haul of cheap kitchen tools and weird earrings and socks and stuff like that. So many laughs. We had a shopping day at a craft store and a vinegar-tasting store. We didn't eat out one single time or watch any movies. We just talked and talked and talked. 

 

Rosanne has quite a few family members living in the area, so we actually had some really fun visits from my cousin Lynsey's kids Wendy and Spencer and her brother Miles Simon. Everyone calls him Mike but to me he will always be Miles Simon. I love that name. And I love him. He and are the exact same age and whenever I get to see him we have a good time chatting. He's such a good guy.

His wife came for dinner one night as well. I thought it was perfect to have the main group be just us eight women but with welcome visits from available family members. Hannah bought a cake and flowers to celebrate Rosanne's birthday, which I don't think Rosanne was thrilled about. She, apparently, does not care for celebrating her birthday. 

Other fun things we did were a crafty afternoon making homemade journals, and Margaret led us in sort of a TED talk-feeling exercise about telling our own personal stories. I wasn't expecting to enjoy that so much but I really did. Margaret is so talented - her exercise got us all sharing interesting things from our lives that would never have come up otherwise.

I really thought the trip was a massive success and I hope we do it again soon. We all kind of agreed that we had our doubts about the ability to make the group bigger, and wondered how the dynamics would change with spouses and kids there. Really...we kind of just want to be the Romney women together again. What a blessing to have had this time together.