spooky small world snippets

I was tagged by Juli, a fellow ex-pat American living in Wellington whose cousin I happened to go to high school with (small world, yes?), to do the following...

• Open your first photo folder.
• Scroll down to the 10th photo. Or, you know, just pick a photo.
• Post that photo and story on your blog.
• Tag five (or more) friends to do the same. (Sorry, but I'll skip this part.)

I enjoyed reading her story and when you combine photos with stories, well, there's no need to twist my arm...

So I went looking, only to get bummed out all over again about all the photos I lost when Q was three months old, but then I quickly got happy looking at so many photos I had forgotten about. Anyway, get this, my first post-crash folder was 25/08/07. Spooky. And here is the photo...

Margaret and Jon being their usual silly selves
with a three-month-old Q-bert

Once upon a time, Margaret and Jon lived in Wellington and we got up to all sorts of mischief together. Then they sadly moved to Auckland, and if that wasn't bad enough, they now live in Abu Dhabi. It's not often you find "couple friends" and Wellington will never be the same without them.

Margaret is American and Jon is a Kiwi. Margaret and I bonded instantly. We had an amazing amount in common. We had very similar upbringings, coming from large Catholic families. She felt like a sister, and that's pretty cool when all your sisters are a world away. Her sister lived in Cincinnati at the time. Did I already mention that it's a small world? And once, without any planning, we got to meet each others' families while all coincidentally celebrating Christmas in Cincinnati. The weather nearly got the better of us, but we had travelled across the world and we were not going to let that massive snow storm get in the way of such a rare opportunity. If it had not been for my brother-in-law, Eddye, it wouldn't have happened. He was the only one brave enough to collect them on Christmas Eve in that storm and then drop them off again at, what 3am??!!

Do you know how priceless it is to have someone know virtually your entire family when that family lives 6,000 miles away?

The first time they came over for dinner, I had Over the Rhine playing and she immediately recognized it. An "Oh. My. God. You know Over the Rhine" moment led us to discover that many many years ago we had been at the same OtR concert that couldn't have had more than 100 people in the audience. Once again, spooky.

So, the photo...At this time two years ago, they visited from Auckland to meet the newest member of Team Buckley. As usual, lots of laughter and silliness ensued and Quincy was a more-than-willing participant.

And now in less than three months they will have their very own little munchkin. (I guess that that weekend didn't put them off children afterall!) They will make great parents and we are looking forward to seeing them in action and meeting Team Sickling's newest member early next year.

The end.