Deb's Creation Challenge # 2

Hello there!

Grab a cuppa, drink or tissue, its going to be long, and there is a layout to finish the story off at the end.

This morning I woke up earlier enough to feel a little better about myself and finally get a paper layout finished for Deb's Creations. This is for the Challenge # 2 and my layout is called Play Hard, Live Loud!

This layout has a HUGE SYMBOLIC REASONING behind it and the photographs speak for themselves.

Back in April last year we had a massive family re-union and I mean huge. My grandfather was looking for his family over in the U.K. and we had been searching for almost 10 years for memory to try and see if his sister Barbara was still alive. My mother decided to go onto the Internet and place our details on a website called Ancestry.com a website based on family tree history and finding family. After all it was back when Grandad was in his 20's he had left England to move to Australia and lost contact with his family after the War.

Mum had a hit from the ancestry website saying someone wanted to get in touch with her regards details that she had placed on there regarding my grandfather etc. So without hesitation mum got in touch with Gareth Mitchell, whom at the time we didn't even realise would be a major part of our family history. Mum spoke to Gareth and they concluded that his Grandmother Barbara and my Grandad Nick were in fact Brother and Sister and who had been searching for each other all these years.

The excitement was over bearing and we couldn't believe we had found each other and we as a family were about to be able to speak to our new relatives via web cam that we didn't even know existed and yes Grandad and Sister spoke for the first time in 62 years.

The tears even typing this roll down my cheeks. As it turned out, Gareth is the son of Brenda who is actually my mums cousin, which means Gareth is my second cousin.

Barbara Grandad's Sister was too ill to fly to Australia so in saying all of this Uncle Brian who is Barbara's son Grandad's nephew, Brenda my mum's cousin and her son Gareth my second cousin decided they wanted to meet with us!!! So a year of planning and they arrived here in Australia to meet the family they never knew existed in April 2008 and we called this trip "POM FEST".

As a new family we celebrated the reunion with all the trimmings. My mum organised a HUGE birthday party for all the ones that we had all missed out on so everyone got to celebrate their birthday in a special way. The ironic part about this whole thing is that we are so much alike in every way! Personalities, looks and even traits. We had a fabulous time and wanted to mark the occasion with something very unique.

We came up with a design for a tattoo to mark the special event. The Southern Cross to represent Australia and the Mandarin writing in the middle of the tattoo saying Williamson our family name! Those who didn't want to get the tattoo, had special necklaces made to remember it by as well so they didn't miss out all together.

Pictured in the photo here is myself on the right, Gareth my cousin in the middle and his mother Brenda on the left. We each got the tattoo on our backs and my Aunty Jo from Western Australia got hers on her ankle. My brother since the event has had his placed on his forearm also.

I decided that I would scrap this event as it means so much to have a symbolic meaning to my family name and something to pass onto future Williamson generations. This year Grandad and my mum will be flying over to the U.K. to see them again and to finally get closure with his sister after all these years.

Thank you for listening and allowing me to share this with you.

Mwah & Hugs Angie xoxox