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Ed & Jean Galyon had 6 boys and 1 girl. Those 7 kids had 30-something grandchildren, and those grandchildren had about 15 great-grandchildren. And we are the Galyon's. We are the kind of family where when Grandma says "jump", we say "how high". And when someone is sick, we all show up. And it's also the kind of family that has each other's back. My husband always says that he knows if he ever does me wrong, he'll end up buried in a slab of concrete somewhere. And although that's terribly morbid (and not true)-he knew from day 1 that we are a package deal. Somebody hurts one of our own and we are all in the fight.

I remember back in high school I had to drag one of my boyfriends into the house, he was so afraid to meet my dad. Here's why: Ed & Jean raised a family from the ground up. And then their sons started a company from the ground up in the same way. Not a dime was handed to them. Over the years, bigger corporations and even individual homeowners have even tried to push them around and rip them off. And my dad and uncles quickly learned that if you don't stick up for yourself--no one will. There are stories about the G-Bros pouring a truck load of concrete in the middle of a parking lot and threatening to let it dry in a big mountain that would have required a heavy amount of manpower to remove. That story ended in a CEO flying his private helicopter from Denver, landing at the jobsite, and handing them a check (that hours before he said couldn't be delivered) for the remainder of their work.

There's a story floating around of the guys taking sledgehammers to the siding of a house they had built, but the family was threatening to not pay what they had promised. Once again, that story ended in the money they deserved. The money that paid for their help and families to eat. So you see why maybe a boy would be a little eager to treat me right ;)

So what does this have to do w/ a video of a burning field? Well, apparently whoever owns the field next to my Uncle Phil's house (where we had Easter at), carelessly and dangerously chose to not only burns 80 acres of land on Easter Day, but he came within about 10 inches of blowing all our cars up and about 30 yards of burning down the house. You should have seen my Uncle "confront" him. It was very Galyon-esque. I won't repeat what he said because, well, it's probably PG. All 30 of us ended up in the front yard watching evergreen trees burn to the ground as our cars, hair, and clothes soaked in the sweet aroma of smoke. Ha. About 30 seconds later, Rodney runs out of the house saying "I've heard about this for years. I gotta see this with my own two eyes."

Due to that event and so many other elements, this was easily my favorite Easter. There is a lot to be said for a family who sticks together through thick and thin. And I thank my lucky stars God blessed me with one.