before i dive into the main story i’m here to tell, i want to set the stage …

in my previous post i mentioned the four things that matter more than anything else in my life … and #1 is proximity to family. what that means for me might be very different than what it means for someone else.

first, what’s “proximity”?

for me that has meant being within a days drive of my core family and that is why we have landed in stl. and proximity also implies being close.

i can be in my parent’s kitchen or be sitting on my sister’s couch in the same day if i need to. we’ve had opportunities to nest somewhere else in this great country but i’ve always resisted the thought. there’s comfort in knowing i could drop everything right now and be home in 8 hours if necessary [well … not right now because we’re in the middle of mandate to “shelter-in-place” and stay-at-home and self-quarantined, etc.]

[friendly reminder … physically distant ≠ socially distant]

second, let’s define “family”

and while this seems obvious, i’m not entirely sure it is. i’ve come to realize that my family is extremely close-knit. i’m not discounting my mom’s side of the family but we haugen’s are cut from the same cloth.

third, meet my family

it starts [or has continued since the 1600’s depending on how you look at it] with my grandpa’s generation – 14 haugens born in the most northern of northern minneeeeesota [trust me, we were there last summer … it’s basically canada] we still have family reunions that started as their yearly get-together as siblings in the 1960’s! [why did you think we were up there?]

for anyone counting, that’s ~60 years of haugen parties going strong because of this crew. [my grandpa is in the middle — known as henn-dog]

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it continued with “the four brothers” … philosopher g, bobby [my dad], harv and jimmy

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and then with “the four evil cousins” [i bet, your wondering why the f i would call us that … hopefully i don’t forget to explain] … gene, q, bird [me], mands

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disclaimer: of course, none of us would be where we are without the family members that we lovingly-named call “haugen-wanna-be’s” … aka those brave enough to marry any of the folks listed above or their blood relatives.

but alas, they are not the main characters in this saga so i will introduce the spouses as they come up… except it’s 100% worth mentioning the rock solid, bad-ass women that kept the above crew thriving:

• gramma e = mom of four boys + grandmother of four girls
• sam = my mom

this of course isn’t my whole family. these are simply the main characters of my story. [i bet they didn’t realize there was a casting call]

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here we all are … the second-to-last christmas harvey could walk: