A sibling tradition was started in 2004 where all 7 siblings got together for each of our 50th birthdays. Just the 7 of us. No spouses. No kids. Each birthday kid picked the destination. 2004: Boston, MA. 2011: Wrightsville Beach, NC. 2013: Atlantic City, NJ. 2014: Richmond, VA. 2015: Wintergreen, VA. 2017: Hartwell Lake, VA. 2018: Nags Head, NC.
It was a fun tradition, so when we reached the last 50th (mine in July of 2018), the question was asked, “What’s our new tradition going to be now?” With all of our kids being older now, and with more of us reaching the empty nest stage of parenting, we decided that all 8 couples (we are now officially expanding this count to include our only-child cousin Steph and her hubby Frank) getting together every 18-24 months would be good.
Fast forward 18-24 months, and we are deep in the detachment of COVID isolation. So it took us a bit longer to get this tradition off the ground. Last year, at my sister Ann’s birthday, her and her husband Joe were talking up Argentina. Being a generally pretty active family, that gave Charu the idea of having a Backroads trip in Patagonia for the family.
And so it began:
- 2022.12: Patagonia, Australia