So Fun To See Family!

This month we had lots of family come to town all at the same time. I love having my siblings visit. I am currently the only child in Arizona with my parents. My brother Sean is in dental school at Ohio State, my sister Shanna lives in Kentucky and goes to school across the river in Cincinnati for audiology school, and my brother Gil lives in San Diego with his kids. They all came to town for a few days and we rode around on the ATVs and bikes and had lots of good food. My older brother Gil brought his girlfriend and kids.

For anyone who doesn't know the story, my younger siblings and I found out about Gil when I was about 17 years old. My mom was engaged and pregnant at age 19. Her fiance left her and her dad put her in a home for unwed mothers to give the baby up for adoption. 10 years later she joined the church and met my dad. Fast forward about 17 years....we were watching Geraldo and they were talking about mothers being reunited with their adopted babies. My mom couldn't stop crying and proceeded to tell us her story. We were shocked! She said she thought about him every day and we had never had a clue! We convinced her to go to LA and search for his records. The courts wouldn't give her any records but said she could leave her info if he ever wanted to find her. Fast forward about 7-8 more years...my sister and my sick grandfather were living with my parents and my sister had some time on her hands. She decided since she had so much of his birth info, she would try to find him again. My grandfather said he would pay any fees because he always felt bad about the whole adoption thing. Well my sister located a woman who had all of the hospital's records and was able to track him down. It's a long story from there but we surprised her with the info for her birthday and flew Gil out the next weekend. He had known he was adopted since a very young age and had a good life. It's been great knowing him and his family. He's the one behind me with the mustache. Handsome guy! His girlfriend Vicki has the black hat. She's as sweet as can be and my daughter loves her. His daughter Mellissa has the black sweater. She was here with her husband and 2 dogs. His other daughter is Ariana (red shirt) and Austin is his son (grey shirt, brown hair). It's been about 10 years since we met them.