my mother has a moose

it's true.  she tells me this often.

let's start at the beginning of the story, or maybe it's the end?

either way.

this photograph will take us there (to the beginning or the end).

this is a line up of kids from the side of the family that we call the tripp family although i think only one or two of these kids carries on that last name.  these are the "great grandchildren" of my grandparents from my dads side of the family.  

last month we hosted a reunion of sorts in our backyard and it was fun.  some of these kids grow tall in oregon and the others are around here but, we don't get together too often.  so, with the awesome people visiting from out of state, we decided to ask everyone over for a barbecue during which my cousin questioned my ability to get all the kids together for a picture.  

i said, "line up in order of age against the fence."  see, kids like this sort of thing.  they like to see who they're older than and younger than, taller than and shorter than.  little girls like to hold little babies and little toddlers like to do what the big kids are doing.  easy.  the only one that took a little convincing was super cool billabong there, the oldest of the bunch by quite a bit.  poor kid.  he was a sport though and he stood like he was asked to looking all superior and tall.  thanks mays!

so back to the story.  after we took this photo, we decided to take another one.

these are the grown people who parent and grandparent the children above.  they're all my family and i love them.  again, several are missing but we did what we could with what we had.

the beginning or the end of the story about my mother's moose started or finished when one nice person accidentally dropped my camera on the cement while taking this photograph.  just centimeters away from the grass.  i wanted to cry but i'm not supposed to because i'm in the adult picture so i shrugged it off and  didn't think twice about it until the next day when i picked up my camera and the whole front fell off sending tiny pieces flying all over my kitchen.  sniffle.  

now, i realize my camera was by no means a super nice, high quality picture taking device.  in fact, i blame myself because i haven't been very kind to my camera as i constantly wish for a newer, nicer, much large and far more expensive version.  serves me right.

with my camera broken and no money in the bank for such materialistic wants, i complained to my mom and like usual, she solved my problem.  "you can have my old camera."

fast forward to yesterday.  

she drops by cayden's baseball game with this large camera bag and inside is none other than a kodak easy share from 1999.  my sweet mom.  i can hear my dad now responding to what he would think is my ungrateful, snotty reaction, "it's too big?  buy your own damn camera then" or something like that.  

i'm not complaining.  not at all.  i'm super duper grateful and will use it often but she made sure to leave me with one condition.  

"get the photos of my moose off of it first and send them to me"

dear mom, 

here are the photos of your moose.

my mother has a moose.  i wish i had a moose.  if i did, i'd name him murray.

signing off with the kodak easy share.  thanks mom!

peace out murray!