Announcing the Birth of Lar Lar Land

I really love happy endings, or should I say beginnings? Wow! Where shall I start... How about a little background information first? It all began when I lost contact with my older sister and her family and my oldest brother after the death of my mom in 1994. Our dad had passed away in September of 1981. Losing contact with my sister and brother and their families caused me great heartache and I felt such sadness and felt so lonely. Not only did I lose my mom and dad but I lost my whole family bloodline on the Dice side in one shot.

I tried finding them through various websites and social networking sites to find them and although I registered, I failed to do so. I once saw that my sister signed up on Classmates and I contacted her via email but never heard back from her. I was guessing that she might have signed up but never revisited that site. Over the years I posted on Classmates, Myspace, and Facebook pages with pictures and updates on what I and my family were doing in hopes to find my lost family and hope that maybe one day they would contact me if they were looking for me as well. Well, that day finally arrived. YAY! My sister's wonderful girls looked our family up online and found me through my daughter's Myspace and Facebook pages. One of the girls had written to my daughter and explained how much they missed us and hoped that their mother and I would talk to one another again and gave her their phone number. I was so ecstatic to hear this wonderful news and am happy to say my sister and I have successfully and happily been reunited via the telephone and email for now. Hopefully we'll get to see and hug each other in person real soon. I for one am looking forward to our new beginnings.

Now as to how the “Lar Lar Land” originated. …Over the years Shannon my daughter had written and created so many wonderful blogs and Myspace and Facebook entries, that I was so impressed and wanted to blog just like her. She made it look so easy. Bless her heart, she created so many templates for me to blog on that I never used more than once because I was at a loss to what my focus for the blogs would be...now I know. Lar Lar Land was born and it is my hope to keep it going, not only for myself but for all our family.

The perfect background and layout for my blog was customized by my talented daughter. She thinks I look exactly like the girl character...Hmm...not sure about that. The Lar Lar Land title came from a nickname that my sister called me growing up...LAR LAR(short for Lauren and also LARD BUTT!!!) How's that for a nice sister???? She used to call me "Lar Lar" in a whiny, loud, irritating voice, mostly to irritate me and make me cry all the while knowing that I hated it and it brought great amusement for herself. I used to walk on my toes as a little girl, and doing so would cause my rear end to protrude out like a little rumble seat. She had many hours of laughs and giggles over this. Over the years I lost contact with her, I would have done anything to hear her calling me that dreaded name again.

Now that I have her back in my life, I thought it would be a perfect name for our family blog and a loving tribute to my sister. My thoughts for this blog are to write a memoir of sorts about our family as I remember them growing up, adding personal history and photos. In some ways I will be writing my life story every day. My thoughts, actions and experiences will be forming the memories and life lessons that contribute to our story I'll be sharing with others. I hope to regularly blog about my personal insights from my life and try to be aware of what’s going on around me.

It's my greatest hope that my Sister and her family, as well as my own, will love to add their stories ,photos and insights to this blog. We'll have a wonderful, rich, life story filled with traditions, anecdotes, photographs, and memories to hand down to the next generations.

Forever yours,

Lar Lar