Wednesday, August 22, 2007

The Minnesota Giants

Actually, from our perspective, these are the Minnesota Second Cousins (of Julia). And they are brothers but not twins. They are the sons of my first cousin Anne Byrne, who lives in the Minneapolis suburbs. We were able to visit them during our recent trip.

Michael, on the right, is 6'10" and studying engineering (we forget what kind) at the University of Michigan. Matthew is 6'6" and stockier that Michael, and he has just entered Duke University as a freshman.

Their dad Pat has decorated their rec room half in Michigan's colors and paraphernalia, and the other half in Duke. Home Depot carries school colors, in case you were wondering.

So, let me fill in some details on our recent trip so it starts to make some sense. We had three weeks, so we decided to take a train across the northern US, since many from my family live on the route of the Empire Builder. We flew to Portland, Oregon, and visited my sister who lives in Cottage Grove. Then we took the train to Williston, North Dakota, to visit my grandmother, aunt, uncle and cousin. Then we continued and visited my aunt and uncle in Fargo, ND, and cousin Anne in MSP, and then finally we visited friends in Detroit, before flying home from there.

Anne knew how to play a lively pattycake which kept Julia enthralled.

2 comments:

halfpassgirl said...

Congrats on the launch of your blog! You should have gotten a picture of the "giants" standing up next to Julia for scale.

Chris Burkholder said...

I know! In fact, I thought I was doing that when I sat down with Julia in my lap between the guys, but I guess I was sitting up straight while they were slouching, or something, because the only way you can tell is if you compare our knees. Not very dramatic.