One Sunday during August, N8 and I had some special guests. My cousins from Cali came to visit us. My cousin served an LDS mission in New Zealand and she was here for her mission reunion. It was so nice to have her over. We each made our own personalized pizza for lunch and played 'Curses.' It was a great time.
My mom and dad are both from Cali and moved here when they got married. As a result, we grew up far away from their families. We rarely had big family get-togethers. Thanksgiving and other holidays were never spent with grandparents or cousins. We would see them occasionally when we went to California to visit or if there was a funeral, but it was rare.
My cousin and I became pen pals when we were quite young, around 1990, when we were both about eight. We wrote each other on and off through elementary, junior high, and high school. We wrote about the classes we were taking, the guys we liked, the difficulties at home, and threw in a few jokes here and there. We wrote to each other for about 10 years. I kept every one of those letters and would read them occasionally.
Right before N8 left for his deployment to Germany, we went on a trip to Cali. While there, we stopped to visit my cousin. I brought all of the letters I'd collected over the years so that she could look at them. Apparently, she had also kept all the letters I wrote to her. We spent an evening visiting her and her husband and I left her letters with her so she could look at them.
Before we came home from our trip, we met up with my cousin one more time. She gave me a binder she had put together. She had taken all of her letters and all of mine and made a copy of each of them. There were over 60 letters in that binder. My cousin even put them together by date. It was so awesome and priceless.
It has been so nice to continue my friendship with my cousin. N8 and I really enjoyed having them over. We had a great time talking and hanging out. I wish we lived closer to each other. Maybe someday . . .
