Saturday was my dad's birthday, which means it was also my uncle Jimmy's birthday.

Usually no one gets together, the last few years the excuse was that my uncle moved to Georgia, and we're all in the Pacific Northwest. But back when he lived in Seattle, apparently it was still too far away.

Anywho, it was their 55th birthday, and the whole group of everyone and their kids got together at my Auntie Ellen's hippie commune in Olympia.

So, I took the opportunity to get some photos of them, just to prove to myself and others that they really are identical.

This, is a smile-

My dad is the balding one, my uncle is the one that decided to just shave it all off.

Personally, I think my uncle needs a better tan on that bald head of his, because right now he looks like a cancer patient, His facial hair is also awkward, the chin poof is nearly flesh toned and just makes him look like he's got a chaw in his mouth.

I say that, because he was picking on my dad for his "I always look this frazzled" hair style, which I think makes him look more human, and actually a lot younger.

Either way, if you scroll the page up so both of their heads are covered, they're still freakishly identical.


...Which is why I'm posting this picture.

You know when you're spacing out and not really focusing on anything and you get that sort of "I like turtles" retarded look on your face?

Even their "I like turtles" look is the same-


Frightening.


Also frightening were their birthday cakes-


110 candles lit in one room. They were so hot that it melted the musical element in those Singing candle things, and most candles were melting from the bottom down.

Also, if you notice there is a chocolate cake and a white cake. More specifically, an angel food cake and a devil's food cake.

When my dad and my uncle were little, their mom would make both cakes on their birthday. The Devils food cake for my uncle Jimmy, the Angel food cake for my dad, Johnny.

Even when they're not together, my mom or I make sure my dad has a slice of angel food cake on his birthday, apparently Jimmy's wife and kids do the same for him, only Devils food cake.

Cute huh. The Angel and the Devil. its probably true. Though I bet when they were little they were both little devils.

Long story made incredibly short-

There is a town in Washington called "Humptulips"

HUMPTULIPS.
(you totally need to follow that link and read "references in fiction" because omg, its so true.)

See-


I'll have a GIGANTIC picture post later this evening or tomorrow morning detailing much of our weekend excursion, but I have to work on some custom orders (dont worry kymster, I'll finish your pin!) and get my laundry all caught up, plus do some exercising, so yeah..

But you should definitely be on the lookout for it. Its awesome.

-A

Today's TO DO list-

(I woke up late and am now just getting started)

Switch laundry
put away/load dishwasher
Take shower
Get dressed
make tiny shrinky dink fairy
create two strips of large cardboard bacon
call my mom with the dimensions of said cardboard bacon so that she can create proportionately sized cardboard fried eggs
begin packing for beach trip
finish "fun bags" for beach trip
Go to vampire Dr appointment (just going for a blood draw, its like a 5 minute app)
Clean living room
Clean both bathrooms
Straighten crafting area
go to bed early


If you notice the italicized sentance up there, you'll probably giggle a bit at how undeniably strange my family truly is.

Anna on the front porch at my parents house in Ridgefield Washington.



Meet Lillian. She's all black, and very difficult to photograph...



Mostly because she's always attacking something.



She was quite partial to my shoes.



And Annas leg.



...Or hiding in the shadows and plotting your ultimate demise.





You just wait Anna.



She's super adorable though. Her tail is a little pointy thing that is shaped like an inverted cone. Apparently when they first got her, it was much shorter and just stood straight up. I wish I had been there to take pictures of that!
-A.

Sara Union Cemetery, Ridgefield Washington.
These are the graves of my great aunt Helena and her husband Phillip.



Clara was Phillips mother.

Less than a mile away, up on top of a beautiful hill on the way to Felida, Helena lived in a bright pink 2 story house that Phillip had build on his family's land. His mother and father lived next door in an old white farm house.

Back in their day, everyone in Ridgefield and Felida (neighbouring towns) was pretty much a farmer of some sort. My great grandfather had a huge field of strawberries, and a cherry orchard. Along with the fruit they grew for sale, they also had three fields with vegetables growing, and a grape vine that circled the property. His brothers were all farmers as well, and his sisters all pretty much married farmers.
Phillip's family raised cattle for dairy and beef. They also had goats and a few sheep, but mostly it was the cows.

When they came of age, like most young men of age during WWI, Phillip and his brothers joined the Army. He served a small tour and then returned home to the farm. Being a worldly man now, he would travel to the city and that was where he met the beautiful and talented Helena, Who was just beginning her career as a Ballerina. Of course, she was looking to remain in the city, but love conquers everything, and she married Phillip and remained a country girl.

A long story short, Phillip's mother Clara came down with tuberculosis about a year before she died. They sent her to a sanitorium, which apparently was where you sent people with tuberculosis. Because of this, Phillip and Helena took charge of the farm.


Unfortunately, in late 1930, Helena took ill. Her symptoms so similar to Tuberculosis, and with the diagnostic tests being not so exact, she was sent to a sanitorium. The same one as her husbands mother. There she caught tuberculosis and died in 1931. Same year as Clara.

About a year after her death, it was revealed to Phillip the truth about Helena's death. The doctor that diagnosed her wasn't sure, but figured better safe than sorry, about sending her to the sanitorium. The results to the test that he did actually showed that she had become sick from bad milk. That made much more sense anyways, because the rest of the family had developed a slight rash and intestinal issues, same as Helena, at the same time, only hers were much more severe.

Phillip never remarried, and died in the house that he build for his beautiful ballerina. Many of her possessions made their way back to her family (The Bryants) and my older sister and one of my mom's sisters both have some of her costume jewelry and many of her photographs from when she was a ballerina.

George, Jim and Mary.
No one knows when George died (or when he was born, for that matter) But  Jim died in 1912, and Mary in 1936. The three are buried between two giant cedar trees, and until the late 1990's, the trees had completely covered the grave stone. When you approach it now, you'll notice the stone is artificially aged, since the original grave marker was damaged during the removal of the bottom half of the tree branches and the accumulation of years of overgrowth. For a few years, the broken gravestone remained, but it had been replaced since the last time I visited.


Many of the gravestones are shaped like tubes. Bryant brown is one of the many with this style of gravestone, apparently signifying that they served in the civil war.

There are quite a lot of servicemen in this cemetery. The flag in the distance is on the grave of one particular high ranking military man.



Another sad thing about this cemetery, is that about half of the graves are those of children that died at birth or under the age of 3. Of those graves, most were buried here alone, meaning that no one else in their family is buried there.


Buried alone, none of their family is buried at this cemetery.

Over the years, many of the grave markers have been damaged at Sara Union Cemetery. Most of the damage is due to nature taking its course, flooding and general neglect. A few sites have been vandalized, but generally people do not visit this cemetery.

Well meaning mourners leaving flowers that managed to sprout full blooming bushes that have in some cases caused gravestones to lift and buckle from deep roots and continued growth, funeral wreath holders, rusted and slumped over man of the graves remain undisturbed because no family remains in the area, and the church that maintains the cemetery generally leaves well enough alone.

A few of the oldest residents of this cemetery had their graves marked with wooden markers. Now there are quite a few people buried there that no one knows the location of, and even more that no one knows anything but a first or last name, or even just the year of their death.

This cemetery is about 10 feet from a main road, nestled a bit too closely to a power hub and a seeding farm. Still, its very peaceful, and not a bit spooky. Still, I always feel like crying when I see "baby" or "died at birth" written on a grave stone.

-A.