Happy to be his shadow....

While looking though pictures for my mom's birthday post yesterday I came across this picture from my brother's visit this summer.  When I saw this picture I immediately teared up. This is a picture of my brother Tim and my baby girl from his visit this summer. She doesn't take well to "strangers" but loved Tim even though she had never seen him before.  I miss my big brother.  I don't get to see him often.  He is all the way up in Vermont. I have loved that he has made it down here with his kids the past couple of summers.  My kids love playing with their cousins

Growing up I wanted to be Tim.  To me, everything he did was cool.  So many of my decisions that I made were because of him....band, retreat leaders, photography.... He loves learning and sharing his knowledge.  He loves Legos and is probably the best Lego creator I know (the engineer in him).  It is my relationship with him that makes me realize how important and influential the role of an older sibling can be.  That is something I have tried to and will continue to try and explain to my kids.  He is one of the most selfless people I know and is a wonderful father to his two kids.  I so badly wish he was closer....

He is probably one of the best teachers I have ever known (a general term here... he is not an actual school teacher although I think he could be) .  He is extremely patient and GREAT at explaining things and making them sound a lot more simple that I made them out to be.  He has always demonstrated the amazing work ethic that our parents strived to instill in us....NEVER do anything halfway.  As much as I have fallen a bit from there, he hasn't.  He is a AWESOME photographer! There is still part of me that always wants to impress him.... getting a compliment from him about a photograph I shot will have me floating on a cloud all day.

Seeing this picture has gotten my head spinning with so many things....mainly things I need to talk to him about, but just haven't.  I started writing out my thoughts here but had to delete them because they became to personal.  That is for a whole other post....hopefully coming soon.  I am still new to this frequent blogging thing so I will not overwhelm all two of my readers :)

I love you Timmy!