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My family is living spread all over the US. I currently work out of country (lucky IT job). My parents still live in their home town in the midwest and are both retired. How do you keep contact to the family members? Any recommendation for tools apart from calling of course?
Well, you can zoom ...or if they (your parents) have a smart device, you can video call.
Then there's an older, less expensive method used in the US since the pony Express days...write a letter, a post card or such.
As you are out of the country, unless they (and you) have an international plan, calling might not exist. But, there are other apps that will connect you video chat to get around the international issue.
(While I engage in online "dating" ( a misnomer) I can tell when a potential scammer is outside the US because they want to chat on one of those apps..so I block them).
Other than that, and maybe a once a year family reunion at your parents home (as it's kind of a central US location) where each member/s fly "home" to get together...IF all can easily afford it...there's that too.
All in the US Shou be able to text each other..and if you (being the only one outside) cannot, then look to invest in an international plan for a smart device.
That's about the best I can offer...
Others may have other ideas..but off hand that's all I can think of.
All of my immediate family live within an hour or so of our hometown. I have extended family distributed across the country, but we are not close.
I have a lot of cousins, but with the exception of one younger cousin, I'm not close to any of them. I don't see eye to eye with a lot of family members on a variety of issues. Some are on my Facebook, but probably less than half of my aunts and uncles are.
I will keep in touch with some family members via Facebook. I'm really only close with my parents, one aunt, and grandmother. I was close to my dad's oldest brother for years, but he decided to basically get a mail order Filipina bride last year, and I've only seen him once since 2022, other than my grandparents' funerals.
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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We are split between the San Francisco Bay Area, Seattle area, and Olympic Peninsula. Most of our contact is through Facebook, where we can all participate. If something important or urgent comes up it's email. Once a year we will have a big family reunion, in Sequim most years.
My family is living spread all over the US. I currently work out of country (lucky IT job). My parents still live in their home town in the midwest and are both retired. How do you keep contact to the family members? Any recommendation for tools apart from calling of course?
I use skype to talk to my cousin in Australia. She and her husband are there without any family so she needs to have contact from us. I talk to my sister 200 miles away and my daughter in Delaware once a week on the phone and occassionally in the evenings. I talk to my aunt who lives 200 miles away and my uncle who lives in Kentucky on the phone at least once a month. They don't email much. The rest of the cousins I email. My brother lives next door, my other daughter lives in the same city and two of my nephews also live in the same city. The nepnew in California does not contact us very often.
30 years ago, what became a dear friend, she had snitched her daughters chain letter (postcard). Our family moved, told someone I felt bad about not responding a year later.
"How would you feel if you heard from her?". So I wrote ! She had keep the letter she wrote, I had changed addresses And we've communicating ever since ! 1997, we began e-mail, letters, postcards of our travels, occasionally a phone call, so special !
This is to encourage anyone to communicate, by whatever way you can !
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