From Burns with love and lang syne

Molly and I received our first fan letter yesterday and it came to us all the way from Burns, a small logging town in Eastern Oregon.
The town is named for national Scottish poet Robert Burns and we have visited it twice because Molly's Aunt Sharon, who wrote us the letter, lives there.
While we've had the pleasure of visiting Sharon and her husband Dennis in Burns twice in the past few years, we don't get to see them nearly enough. Fortunately for us, Sharon has developed a rare skill in this age of frenetic updates and text messaging.
Sharon writes letters.
Molly and I both enjoy the immediacy and wide reach electronic communication offers. We cheerfully cede countless precious hours to cyberspace and we post, chat and tweet fairly regularly.
But we also genuinely appreciate the printed word. And when it's hand written, we like it all the more.
Robert Burns is famous for his written words, especially Auld Lang Syne. When I first met Sharon 26 years ago, I found it fascinating that a girl raised in a cosmopolitan family right in the heart of Chicago would find a home deep in the Oregon woods.
Having been to that beautiful part of the country, and having grown to know and love the kindest member of a family that leads with its heart, we've seen that Burns, Oregon is the perfect home for Sharon.
And we'll take her cup of kindness yet, for auld lang syne.




Here are six of Molly's aunts, two of her uncles and her dad.
I've seen this picture many times in the past few years
and I just noticed that they are in birth order. Deep breath. And...
JoanDonnaCarolSharonSteveElaineVinceNancyJimmy

Molly is lucky to have 11 aunts. Here is a picture of six of them,
with Sharon on the far right.

Molly, me, Katherine, Grandma Mary Jane, Aunt Donna and Sharon.