Living near family

Living near lots of family is so wonderful! Yesterday I got in an accident (my fault, unfortunately) and I had to drop my car off at the shop--it wasn't driveable. Of course we are leaving on vacation tomorrow and I had a million things to do, plus the fact that I had to pick Carter and Caroline up from school. Matt said he would come home if he had to, but there was a lot of things going on at work and he needed to be there if at all possible.

So I call Mom and she picked me up from the body shop, took me to walmart, took me home, picked me and took me to get Carter, Took me to get Caroline, and watched the kids while I got my haircut, then took me home. She is leaving on vacation tomorrow too, and I know she had a lot to do, but she never complained once about all the driving I made her do. I can't count the number of times she or dad has come over to help, or stay with the kids, or do any number of things to help us out.

My siblings/siblings-in-law are the same way--babysitting, last minute emergencies, anything that happens Matt and I know we can call our parents or our siblings and they will be there to help us with whatever we need. Time and time again we have found this to be true.

I know a lot of people don't live near family, and I feel very lucky to have both sides of our family living close. We do find it interesting that for both of us the only sibling that lives more than a few hours away is our sister Jennifer--Matt's sister Jennifer lives in Utah and my sister Jennifer lives in Oregon.