My parents have this awesome tradition where they take each one of my siblings or me out for a date every weekend. We take turns and have had a rotation schedule for years. It started as a way to give one-on-one attention to each one of us and has carried on into our adult years. For a recent date we ended up going on a family history road trip, and traced my dad's (and mine, and Pepper's) roots back to the first Danish and English immigrants.
We brought mini me along because Grandpa loves her and always lets her come on our dates with us as a standard. She helped us find graves, scrub them clean, and kept everyone happy on a long and lovely car ride. We stopped by to see my late grandpa's cousin, who I'd never met before. He shared wonderful stories about my grandpa as well as his home with us. What a sweetie!
It was great to hear stories from my dad's childhood, too, of what he remembered about his grandparents, and as he talked, we got a tour of the places he was so familiar with as a child. We saw the houses he spent his summers, the road he learned to ride a bike on, and even the houses my grandparents were born in (yep, they're still standing!).
This was a really meaningful trip. I loved tracing my roots back to real places and people, not just written names and towns. It helped me feel not only closer to my dad and his parents, but it sparked a strong pride and gratitude for my courageous ancestors who took huge risks to make their families' lives better, which I benefit from daily.
What have you done lately to reenforce your family bonds?
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