This is my mom. I love my mom so very, very much. My mom is ambidextrous. Since she uses both sides of her brain, she can do anything and everything. She writes with both hands, she knits like a machine, she sews better clothes than anything you can find in the store, she crochets, she paints the most magnificent, amazing paintings, she bakes the most delicious things. She is a genius, and can do crazy math, and read diagrams, and has her own company involving a medical machine she invented. She plays the violin, and does her own home repairs, changes her own oil in her car, maintains an amazing vegetable garden, and like all of us girls, reads, reads, reads, reads, READS. Her dream in life is to have her own plane. She is planning on taking her first lessons in the next couple of months. My mom taught me to love the temple. She taught me to love the gospel. She taught me to never give up, never stop smiling, never fail to be cheerful. Avoid contention, do what is right, love others more than yourself, pray always. These are all her lessons by example. She adores her grandchildren. She talks to me and my sisters on the phone almost every day. She drops everything to help us, laughs at our jokes, helps us through the hard times. She made my wedding dress, and half the other things in my house. She has taught me every hobby I know, and helped me with every harebrained craft project I have come up with. She cemented in my mind the powerful and beautiful lesson of pure, unfiltered, forgiving love. I love my mom with every cell in my body. God does love me to bless me with such a mom.
This is my sister Shannon. I don't have a closer pic of her right now because she wasn't feeling very good that day and I didn't want to shove an annoying camera in her face. This is her with Cleve. Her and Cleve connect on a deep level. Here they are planting flowers and having a blast.
Shannon is the elder,
elderest sister of us five. She took care of us a lot when we were growing up. She is magnificently good at every single thing she does. She could be a lumberjack, a ballerina, an opera singer, or an astronaut and she would be the best at it. She lives and works in Seattle. She is such an amazing writer. She has the vast majority of wit that is upon this Earth. She, like all of us, LOVES to read. She introduced me to
Sinead O'Connor, and loves all other music. She will go into a music store and buy tons of music she has never heard before. She makes us totally
rockin'
cds of previously unknown but then beloved songs. She especially loves Tori Amos and Tom Waits. She plays soccer, and is really, really good. When she was in High School, she acted in lots of plays like Little Women, and Shakespeare. She has had the same best friend since High School (Angel, previously featured) She also played Dungeons and Dragons, and Magic, with those little Magic Cards. She is in a knitting club, and loves to watch movies. I talk almost every week for hours on the phone with Shannon. She laughs at my lame jokes. She encourages me, and helps me, and counsels me, and mothers me, and loves me, and cries with me, and is always, always, always there for me. I am so unbelievably grateful for my beloved Shannon.
This is my sister Jessica. There are so many great things about Jessica it's hard to try to even list them.
Jessica is a dancer. She dances even when she isn't dancing. She is almost always smiling. She laughs, and laughs, and is so upbeat and goofy, and loyal, shes that friend you don't ever want to lose. She is crazy in love with her man, Mark. (We are too, she just gets him all the time.) She also loves to sing, and paint, and do fun and silly poses. She never gets annoyed when I take her picture. We used to fight all the time over stealing each other's clothes. Well, the truth is she never took my dorky lame clothes, I just took her super cool, sophisticated clothes. In High School she was the leader of the Drill Team, and had an awesome Adidas Jacket. She once loved unicorns, was infamous for burning the rice, and hated mushrooms. She goes to school at UCLA. Jessica always puts you in a good mood, she is so happy, and full of joy that she flings on you like a blanket over your head. She coats you with happiness like sunscreen at the beach. Her favorite colors are black and red.
I love, love, love my sister Jessica.
Jessica and I with our shadows (can you tell what I am doing?)
This is my sister Elise. She is 23, and her birthday is the day after mine. She is the last original free spirit. She loves everyone in the world, no matter what. She is Mother Thelisea. Got that? She has been to Russia, Alaska, lived in Seattle, and been to numerous other places. She has had a million cool jobs, including working at a weird hotel, a framing shop, subway, a nursery, a glassblowing shop, and is currently employed at Good Earth (Green Earth?) a really cool health food store. She loves agreeing with you by saying "WORD." She wants to be a glassblower. She has the best of two worlds. When her hair is not in awesome dreds, it is the most gorgeous entity of golden, thick, silky curls that has ever grown on an earthen head. She is the only MacKay girl with dimples. She too loves Flogging Mary and Cats. She LOVES cats. I have lots of memories about Elise. She once wore a blue green gigantic sweater every day for months, and I couldn't wait for it to die a cotton death, but now I miss it. She once got the Rachel haircut. She also once burst into my room shrieking with excitement when MMMBop by Hanson came on the radio. Once, we called the radio station and she requested Stand By me, and when they asked her who she wanted to dedicate the song to, she said, "To myself." One of the reasons I love Elise is because we think the exact same things are funny, and no one will laugh at them like we do. I will never forget how hard we laughed at The Emperor's New Groove together. I miss my Elise.
This is my sister Kathryn. She is 18, and going to school at Utah State University. She is the smartest 18 year old girl in the world! (
ok, shes smarter than me, i admit it) You CANNOT beat her at Scrabble.
She is the epitome of dry wit that cracks you up. She helps me out so much when
I'm around her i wish i had the money to hire her as my nanny. As the baby of the family, she has always been babied, but you won't catch her complaining. Especially since its just made her sweeter. She loves fantasy novels, and cats. When it comes to secrets, she is like Fort Knox, I'm serious. She recently discovered Country Music, but I don't think she will ever like it more than her beloved Flogging Mary band. Reading is more important to Kathryn than breathing. Again, serious. She plays the piano so amazingly, I am so jealous, although she as yet still refuses to learn "That old Time Rock and Roll" for me. I have begged. But no, she loves to play the easy classics, like
Rachmaninoff. I adore her, and miss her the second, the millisecond i am no longer in her presence. I hope when we get old and our husbands die we can live together like on The Golden Girls.
This infamous man is my Uncle Jim. He is very, very cool. There is a reason he is on my people who make me laugh list. Cool facts about my Uncle Jim. Despite having a pretty mundane job by day, he is addicted to the
XBox at night. He also collects martini glasses. When my sisters and I were little, we WORSHIPPED him. He once took us rollerblading at the beach at 10 p.m. He was always good for trips to Chuck E. Cheese, and he gave us girls our first ever gaming system, the Nintendo
NES, complete with Super Mario Brothers. Any wonder we love him so much? His birthday is on Halloween. He has the coolest, COOLEST, sense of humor. He discovered Mystery Science Theater 3000 before anyone else. He comes up with amazing questions to discuss at parties, but he is also the silliest person to play that
ukulele. That
waifish looking beauty standing behind him is my Aunt Kim, his wife. She is equally cool. She fixed my makeup at my wedding reception. She gives the coolest presents. She is the most amazing Investment Banker ever (want to make a million dollars from like, 50? Call her) She has 8,500 music
cds!!!!!
I'm not kidding. She tells hilarious stories. I love my Uncle and Aunt!
See that big light blob in the middle of the photo? That is flare. BAD flare. This is when it DOESN'T make a pic look cool. Oh well.
Anyway, left to right in the back, Sister Kathryn, Uncle Jim, Aunt Kim, Grandpa
Doane, Sister Shannon, Me.
Front, left to right, Sister Elise, Grandma, Sister Jessica, and Dad.
A really cool family.
Too cool for school, baby.
...happy...no....joyful...
...silly....
Climbing on the decorations guardrails....
...climbing on the tortilla factory guardrails...
........"Stop climbing on the guardrails!!!"
stop climbing on the guardrails? Yeah right.
Kurt and Analise, (straight from his mouth, folks) "the best girl on Earth"
For anyone who has ever or never been on the DCA Ferris wheel, it's vomit inducing fun!
"Kurt's the rootinest, tootinest, cowboy in the wiiiiiiiiild west!"
