I am grateful

...for this girl. For those of you who don't know, she is my sister Selina. She's my best friend, my grounding force and she happens to live a long way away from me on an island with the man of her dreams. So that makes it okay I guess... kind of. She's always been here for me whenever I've needed her, travelling back for the births of my daughters and to see me through tough times. She comes to visit us a few times a year, this time staying longer than usual to see our other sister get married. My girls have an incredibly strong connection with her despite the distance. Selina sees into their souls and I just can not explain the joy that fills them up when she's around. And me too, I have so much to learn from this younger sister of mine. Growing up we fought like cats and dogs, seriously. I'm talking about fist fights and drawing a line down the middle of the bedroom we shared. I would wake up before her every Easter and raid her Easter basket to swap her good eggs with my bad ones. Things changed when she turned 19, started University and came to live with me (I stopped stealing her easter eggs well before then by the way). I always joke I was waiting for her to mature so we could become friends. She'd actually be pretty close to perfect if she'd just let me take her photo more often, honestly she is worse than my kids with the whining and the groaning and the rolling eyes. I snapped this one of her a few weeks ago on a day trip to Tamborine Mountain. Just off to the right of her my youngest girl was dipping her forehead into the water feature. It went a little something like this.

Me: "Oh my god Leen the light is so good right here, quick, look at me"

Selina ( in a whiney voice): "Tone, not now, I want to play with Maggie- look at what she's doing"

Me: "Pleeease, just stay where you are, all you have to do is look at me".

I've always been the bossy one. She indulged me to get me off her back. I'm so thankful she did because I absolutely love this shot of her. She had to leave us yesterday, there is always much sadness when that cab arrives to take her away. If things go to plan next year we'll be seeing her more often!