For the last three days, I’ve been staying with my husband’s cousins and sister in Leavenworth, Washington, called “a Bavarian style village located in the beautiful Cascade Mountains,” about a three-hour drive from Seattle. Everything here has a Bavarian theme, and all signs have to “look Germanic” using a traditional font. Many buildings have painted murals on them. Notice even international chains such as Starbucks and McDonald’s have to have a Germanic look. I especially wanted to show you a photo of the gas price billboard, which has a Germanic font!

I took many pictures of the beautiful flowers, especially those hanging in baskets.

The three daughters of Eric Seastrom, the three daughters of his brother Eskel Seastrom, and the two children of Inga-lill Seastrom Crosier (including my husband Carl) grew up in Port Angeles, located in the northwest corner of Washington State. The three families lived close to one another and celebrated all the holidays together, plus birthdays and other events. The children’s grandmother, Marie (“Nanny”), lived with them ever since the death of her husband, Karl, at the age of 37. To honor his memory, three of the children were named after him: Carl, Carlene and Carol. In short, life was idyllic, filled with family activities and church, and the seven girls outnumbered the only boy, Carl.

All these years later, I was invited to join the “Cousins Reunion” for three days of memories, laughter and fun. The reunion was actually planned for three years ago but was delayed by the pandemic. On our last night, cousin Marg asked all of ur to describe our time together. After some thought, I came up with “Revelatory … Gastronomic … and Sentimental.” Others came up with: fun, family, memories, enjoyable, entertaining, everlasting, love, heartwarming, educational, awesome, fantastic, informative, heart-tugging, remembering, and comforting.

Revelatory — because one of the fun activities (even for me!) was seeing old home movies, now converted to DVD, and seeing my husband as a small child. Being the only boy, he always told me he “was a pill,” but I gained a new perspective on him watching him act goofy whenever the movie camera was turned on—something I would have never suspected! It was obvious, also, that he was very protective of his sister, Carol.

Playing the game “Relative Insanity” started many conversations about the past and present. The slogan of the game is “You can pick your nose, but you can’t pick your family!” We were asked to pick two question cards to read aloud, which then started many conversations. Typical questions were something like “What was the most memorable road trip from your childhood?”

Gastronomic — seems like all we have done is eat these three days!

Sentimental … a time for remembering the past. Cousin Marg perhaps came up with the best three words for why all of us were here: Eric, Eskel and Inga, the three siblings who started it all. Last night Marie compiled our stats: Between the eight cousins, there were

527 years of experience, ranging in age between 71 and 80. (Our math was a little skewed, because Marie used my age instead of Carl’s when he died, which was 68).

19 children
39 grandchildren
8 great-grandchildren
399 years of marriage

I especially enjoyed many conversations with cousin Marie, who is a pianist and retired church organist. You may recall from Carl’s obituary that I mentioned that he often played music with his cousin Marie. We had many moments of laughter recalling our musical disasters and mishaps!

We’ve had a great time!