Growing up with Family

When we were growing up, we lived in North Vancouver.  My Dad and his brothers were born and raised there, and married and had kids of thier own.  My mom had moved to North Van (at some point, but she’s not here and so I don’t know exactly when, but my mom and dad were teenagers together, so….I have no idea where I’m going with this…moving on).

So, we as family grew up together, and most of all of my aunts and uncles had kids, and we had the pleasure of growing up together…..we all lived fairly close together when we were very young, and often slept over at each others house.

It was hard when different ones moved out of North Vancouver, and we weren’t this tight little family unit living on top of each other.  It was especially weird when I started having kids, and there weren’t a bunch of other cousins running around to play with and grow up with.

My cousin and his wife had a little boy just shortly after J was born, and only recently have they two boys really hit it off.  It’s nice to see how well they play together, and just recently, we had Ben sleep over at our house.  The boys laughed and played and chattered and giggled until super late at night, but NOT ONCE did they ever quarrel, and only once did they have a fight. 

It wasn’t a real fight – well, it was a real fight, but it was a boy fight, and not an angry fight.  They were playing and then wrestling, and then started fighting….one thing led to another, and then we were dealing with a bloody nose.  Nice!  That’s when we figured that “wrestling” wasn’t such a good idea, and moved onto a movie.

It did bring back serious memories of my own childhood, and my two brothers “playing
 with my two cousins, Darryl and Matt.  They had their fair share of cuts and scrapes and bloody incidences…..and I wonder how my parents and my aunt and uncle handled it.

Here is the fight in all it’s glory…..I love the power swinging arm motions, and the stomach punches, and the groin kicks.  If you watch carefully, you can see the last few hits that result in Ben’s bloody nose. 

Just a warning, it’s blurry – Blame the Camera Man (Jon)!

All of that, resulted in this……I felt so bad!  He was such a brave little guy!