Have you seen this face???

Several weeks ago my sister and I were planning our "super-dooper-Mom-and-kids-and-cousins-and-whoever-else-we-can-convince-to-come-along" trip for this coming summer when Erin mentioned maybe taking a little trip to Grouse Creek, Utah. Grouse Creek is a small farming community that barely exists on the Idaho/Utah boundary. My grandma lived there as a young girl and, come to find out after our marriage, it is the town where Tyler's grandpa grew up also. Sooo, as any info-seeking gals would do, we both typed in an internet search for http://www.grousecreek.com/. (And yes, sometimes Erin and I will talk on the phone while we are both on the internet looking at the exact same thing. It's like sisterly tech support.)

Anyway, this homespun website included all these old photos and HISTORIES of the people who lived in Grouse Creek. Of course, we clicked on our relatives and then we clicked on the Barlow-side ancestors. Holy treasure chest!!! There were pictures and stories and histories I had never seen before. Tyler's great-grandparents, aunts and uncles, on and on and on. We were both scrolling through so fast saying to each other, "Look at this old picture" or reading to each other bits and pieces of their stories. Then I found this picture:

I knew immediately that the boy in the front left was a direct line to my kids because I have seen that face looking at me before. But when I see it, it's real and alive and in color. And it's a look that is momentary or just a quick glare. It's the "I just woke up from a nap and can't be bothered to smile at you" look. Or the one that says, "I can hear you but in 2.5 seconds I am going to ignore everything you just told me to [not] do." Sure enough, after looking at the description of the people in this family picture, I put it together that the front left boy was none other than my Brock's great-grandfather. And I knew where Brock got that look. You know, this one:
And I love that stuff! I have always felt that spirit of connection with our ancestors. I think they love us and are very invested in our families (their lineage.) There's something about the similarities being captured on film that make it so. When I found a picture of me and my sister talking with friends and I initially thought Erin was me and I was her; THEN I knew we really resembled each other. It didn't really matter how many people had told us that beforehand. So here I have a photograph that shows that Brock really is a little Barlow.

Interestingly, the zoomed photo of Brock was from this family picture:
And what I noticed in ours is that, too, like Brock's great-grandfather's family photo, we have one devilishly handsome father, a fairly young mom, two girls and three boys . . . just like the Barlow family of old.

P.S. Remember the whole name debate when I was pregnant with Briggs and I wanted to name him Jesse? The dad in the above picture (far right) IS Jesse (sportin' the sweet stache.) HE was the man who was friends with Brock's OTHER great-great-grandpa Quartus Sparks Catlin while they lived in little Grouse Creek, Utah.