I believe I’ve mentioned it before, but my family moved around a little when I was young.   I was born in Chicago, as was my sister Debbie (right).

We later moved to Minnesota, and then to Florida.   Both Debbie and I attended high school in Florida, and my sister, who is 2 1/2 years older than me, got married there.  I believe I was 17 at the time, and she was 20 (yep, a young bride).  Or maybe I am off by a year, but don’t worry, if I am I know she will be sure to correct me in a comment.  She likes to correct me.

Anyway, the year was 1981 and my sister married a guy from New Jersey.

Can you tell that her favorite color has always been blue?

Within a year of her marriage, my sister’s husband asked her to move back to New Jersey with him to be closer to his family.  What is a young bride (with a brand new baby, by the way) to do?

Fast forward about 33 years and my sis and I have lived in different parts of the country ever since.

We’ve gotten creative about staying close in spirit, even though we were far apart in body.  We both got bluetooths for our phones and we would walk ‘together’ every Sunday.  She’d walk in her local park, I’d walk in mine and we’d chat.  I’m sure a bunch of my neighbors now think of me as the crazy lady that talks to herself in the park.

But, better yet, we regularly met up for some pretty awesome trips, including our river cruise down the Danube last fall.

Here we are in Lucerne, Switzerland in 1998, another off season European vacation that our mom talked us into.  I still remember how cold it was that day.

We’ve taken quit a few cruises together too.  Here we are on a Baja Mexico cruise that we took for our mom’s 70th birthday.

You can see that Mr. Q joined us, as did my niece Kris.

Honestly, I always figured it was a pipe dream to imagine that my sister and I would ever live near other.  After her eventual divorce, my sister stayed in New Jersey because she had young children.  As her children got older, she talked about potentially moving to Las Vegas to be near our parents.  After my dad died, she got even a little more serious about moving to Las Vegas.  But the economy in Vegas really suffered after the recession.  She wanted to transfer within her company, but there were never any openings out there.

I have always had a campaign going to get her to move to Minnesota.  At first glance, you might think Minnesota doesn’t have much going for it.  It’s really cold and snowy in the winter.  And we have a lot of mosquitoes.  We are really far from an ocean too (a downside in my mind).  However, Minnesota is known for its high quality of life.  Really, it is.  I swear.  As long as you have some decent long underwear and some snow boots.  And I am happy to announce that my long standing campaign has finally come to fruition!  Not only is my sister moving to Minnesota, but my neice is joining her!

While they were here visiting in early March they went apartment hunting and found an awesome place that is only about 10 minutes away from me.  Both of them handed out resumes at various places as well.  As a result, my sister was just offered a lateral transfer to a job here.  She starts on May 4!  She’ll actually be moving in with me for a bit until her apartment is ready, and I plan to put her to work painting furniture.  My niece will join her on July 1.

So yes, it is truly official!  I still can barely believe it myself.  I knew they were serious about moving, but I also knew that my sister needed to have the right job lined up to really make it work.  Now she does!  And I am over the moon with excitement.  Plus, not only am I getting my sister, but I’m also getting my neice Kris.  Life is good!