Flashback Friday & Friday Photo Flashback

Today, I am participating in two nostalgic photo carnivals. I decided to combine them into one post.

The first one below, for Friday Photo Flashback, is a photo taken on Easter day, 1999. This is a significant holiday because this marks the very first Easter after my mother (the matriarch of my family) passed away.

I had just moved back to Arizona, after living in Southern California for 20 years. I did so with the intentions of becoming physically closer to my father, and physically (and emotionally) closer to my siblings; three sisters and one brother. Since I was in California alone, I felt estranged from all of them. I wanted to get to know them better, and to spend some quality time with them.

I'm the youngest, and there is a significant enough gap in our ages which prevented us all from growing up in the same home together. (The ones closest in age to myself were already graduating High School, at the time I was beginning Kindergarten.)

So, here we are, my three sisters and my brother, my adorable nephew, and myself at our first Easter without Mom.

1999

The second photo below, for Flashback Friday, was taken in the summer of 1969. You will see my parents, my siblings and wait... do you see me? I am there, trust me! However you can't actually see me because my mother is pregnant (with me) at the time the photo was taken. But, believe me, I am there. :-)

1969

For more Friday Photo Flashback, go here.

For more Flashback Friday, go here.