Uncle Michael

Our family has been greatly blessed as of late. My mother was reunited with her long-lost baby brother Michael. My grandma had to give him up for adoption when he was 6 months old and my mom was six (it's a sad, sad story) and Mom thought she'd never see him again. Well, just a few weeks ago Michael decided to try to find his bloodline again and gave his daughter Michelle his adoption papers. Thanks to the miracle we call the internet, she found my mom mere hours later! We've all been in an excited state of shock ever since.


They live in San Diego and drove out to meet us yesterday. When they finally got here, Mom went out to meet her brother and would not let go of him for the longest time.






We finally convinced her to let the poor guy come in out of the heat (and snuck in hugs of our own!), but she wouldn't let go of him inside either. :)

That's his daughter Michelle, the one who found Mom. He has another daughter and a son, but we haven't met them yet. Also, Michelle has three beautiful children who we won't meet until next time. I can't wait to see everybody!

Eventually we migrated to the living room, and spent the next while listening to Mom and Michael tell stories and ask questions of each other.

My sister Wendy and her husband Louie.

This is my favorite picture of Mom and Uncle Michael:



Next, Mom broke out some of her old pictures:

Sitting next to Michelle is Michael's girlfriend Pat. Just like Michael and Michelle, Pat is an amazing person and I can see why she and Michael are together. She has eight children, four of whom are adopted and of different ethnic backgrounds. My favorite story that she told us was this one: she had six children, having already adopted two. Then she gets a call from an agency saying two different babies were in need of a home. She didn't just take one, she took them both! She's an angel, I'm telling you.

In the picture above, you can see Michelle is holding one of my favorite pictures of our grandmother. This one:

It turned out to be an emotional experience for Michelle to finally see a picture of her grandmother. She wanted to just look at her all day. It was an incredibly touching moment for me.

Since I love old pictures so much and happen to have a few good ones on my computer, I'm going to share a few. Here's another one of Grandma that I just love:



This is Mom and Michael's oldest brother Gene, who died in the Korean War.

This is the next oldest brother, Freddy:


Sadly, he has had no contact with anyone for over 40 years. We're not even sure if he's still alive. (Update: Mom and Freddie found each other less than a year later! Click here to read the story.)

This is my mom, "back in the day" as her and Michael said. :)

And, thanks to Michelle emailing us some pictures a few weeks ago, I even have some old ones of Michael, the youngest brother:

I love this picture! He's such a cutie!

This is him in the fourth grade.

This fabulous old picture is of his grandparents, my great-grandparents, Wayne and Lucy Hancock. Wayne is Michael's namesake actually. (His name is Michael Wayne.) :)

Next, we took a tour of Mom's house to see some more family history. This is a beautiful picture of grandma that hangs on mother's bedroom wall.

On my mom's dresser is a ceramic box that belonged to Grandma. Inside were several items that were hers as well, including some pieces of jewelry with turqoise in them. Michelle asked "Did Grandma like turqoise?" The answer was "Oh, yes." Wendy asked Michelle, "Do you like turqoise?" Her response was "I do now!" So sweet! So Mom gave her one of Grandma's rings, which Michelle loved very much:

The ring fit perfectly. (Michelle is holding a picture of her Aunt Barbara, my mom, as a little girl):

I just had to get a picture of Michelle wearing her grandmother's ring. Isn't she beautiful?

Of course Michael also received some pieces that belonged to his mother, including a delicate bracelet featuring a turquoise stone. I have no doubt that he will always cherish these.

Next we went into the office, where my mother has a shelf dedicated to their beloved brother Gene. On this shelf is our favorite picture of him in his uniform, the flag that was draped over his coffin, and his purple heart.

We visited for a long while after all this. It was amazing how easily we all got along and how natural it felt to be with them. They are truly wonderful people, and I'm so glad they found us. My cousin Michelle and I really have a lot in common, and I'm excited to get to know her better (I know my sister Wendy's just as excited to get to know her cousin too).

This whole experience has been just incredible. It felt surreal for those few weeks between when Michelle first called my mom to when we finally got to meet them. I kept thinking that once we saw them in person, maybe then it would hit me that the sweet baby I'd always heard about was all grown up and come home to us. But it didn't hit me at first. Not until later did it really register that all this is real.

Now that it's over, I keep thinking about them and reliving all these different moments with them. They're real to me now. They're not just pictures or an idea that comes with the word "family." Now that I've seen them and held them, the amazing circumstances surrounding this reunion has gone away enough for me to feel that deep love for them which binds us as family. How grateful I am to have them in our lives. I look forward to all that lies ahead of us as we continue to meet more family and build more memories. We have a lot of lost time to make up for, but we're off to a good start.

Never Too Old for the Fetal Position

This is how I found Christopher one morning:

Later, Ben was telling Christopher how he had been sleeping. He decided to demonstrate:

Christopher thought that was hilarious, and decided to get into the position himself. He was sure to point out his butt sticking up in the air so I wouldn't miss it!

Too funny!

Book Blurb: The Looking Glass Wars

I couldn't decide which cover to post, so I put them both up. :)

I just finished reading this. It doesn't fall into the same category of fabulous as do the other books I've talked about, but this was still a really fun read. It's the first in a trilogy (naturally) and I'm excited to read the next one. If you're looking for an easy, fun read, try this one. Here's the blurb from the cover:

"The Looking Glass Wars unabashedly challenges the world’s Carrollian Wonderland assumptions of tea parties, dormice and a curious little blonde girl to reveal an epic, cross dimensional saga of love, murder, betrayal, revenge and the endless war for Imagination. Meet the heroic, passionate, monstrous, vengeful denizens of this parallel world as they battle each other with AD-52’s and orb generators, navigate the Crystal Continuum, bet on jabberwock fights and slip each other the poisonous pink mushroom. Finally, someone got it right. This ain’t no fairytale.

Alyss Heart, heir to the Wonderland throne, was forced to flee through the Pool of Tears after a bloody palace coup staged by the murderous Redd shattered her world. Lost and alone in Victorian London, Alyss is befriended by an aspiring author to whom she tells the surreal, violent, heartbreaking story of her young life only to see it published as the nonsensical children’s sojourn Alice in Wonderland. Alyss had trusted Lewis Carroll to tell the truth so that someone, somewhere would find her and bring her home.

But Carroll had got it all wrong. He even misspelled her name! If not for the intrepid Hatter Madigan, a member of the Millinery (Wonderland’s security force) who after a 13 year search eventually tracked Alyss to London, she may have become just another society woman sipping tea in a too-tight bodice instead of returning to Wonderland to battle Redd for her rightful place as the Queen of Hearts."

First Craft of the Summer

Okay, I'm a little behind posting this because we did this last week. I have two specific art projects in mind for the kids this summer (yes, one does involve marbles, how did you know?). We went to Michael's to get supplies, and while there we saw little ceramic figurines for under a buck. The kids wanted one, and since they weren't expensive I said yes (I so rarely say yes to unplanned expenses). Since there were dragons involved, I had to have one too. Tee hee.


I didn't give them any instruction but just let them paint however they wanted. I like to see what kids will do when left to their own devices. John decided to paint his birdhouse instead. So far, this unplanned art project is the only one we've done, but we'll be doing the next one soon.

Christopher's dragon:

Benjamin's monkey:

My dragon:

John wanted me to get all sides of his birdhouse. I like how colorful he made it.

The Hunt is On

It seemed such a simple thing. I decided to do an art project involving marbles, thinking that would only require the simple act of going to the store and buying marbles. Right?

Oh no, no, no.

First I went to CVS (on the recommendation of one person) and then to WalMart (on the recommendation of someone else - Nylene in fact - and Nylene knows everything). But no. No marbles. I had Brian check Target when he was there getting something for scouts. Still no. Fine, I thought. I'll go to stinkin Toys R Us. So that's what I did. With all three kids in tow (silly, silly mommy) and THEY didn't have any either. Are you kidding me?

By the way, all these people claimed to be "out" but I didn't even see so much as a TAG with an empty shelf. Whatever.

If anyone has any information on the whereabouts of this dangerous and elusive fugitive, please inform the authorities immediately. Thank you.

Nathan's Home!!!!

Yesterday we got to welcome Nathan home from his mission. He was gone for 25 months (he asked for a month extension) so we were VERY anxious to see him again.



Waiting for that plane to disembark felt like it took forever. We just kept our eyes peeled on the jetway. (Okay, I know it's really the exit through security, but jetway sounds a whole lot better.)




Kathy (mother) slowly inched her way forward:

There he is!

The five minute hug:

Okay, I just have to say something. I absolutely love watching Kathy welcome her returning missionaries. I hope she doesn't misinterpret it and think I'm laughing at her. I'm not at all. It truly warms my heart, and I look forward to it as much as I look forward to seeing whoever we're welcoming home. A mother's love is so deep, that I think even we mothers don't realize just how deep it is most of the time. Something has to happen to remind us. It could be our pounding hearts when our child has narrowly missed being seriously injured. It could be the moment of panic when we briefly lose sight of our child in a crowded place. It could be the sudden moment of peace and love we feel when we see them asleep in their beds.

Or it could be this. Watching Kathy wait for her children to return to her reminds me just how much we love our children. It brings tears to my eyes just writing about it.


But back to Nathan. :) We were all just thrilled to see him:

Just for the record, I realize I'm not technically supposed to hug him until he's released. (Missionaries aren't supposed to hug any girls except their mothers.) But I don't care. I've known Nathan since he was 3 years old so he's one of Brian's brothers I feel pretty protective about. (You should have seen this cute little guy trailing after Brian when we were dating. So cute!!) Anyway, so yeah. I totally hugged him, more than once, and I don't care at all. ;)

Nathan's plane got in at 9:45 am, and afterwards we basically spent the whole day back at the house visiting (and eating). It was great. At 5:30 we went to the church so he could officially be released. It was a special experience. Watching him at that time I realized something. He's really grown up. He left just a boy, but he's returned a man. He served an honorable mission and I'm proud of him for it. He set an excellent example that I hope my boys will follow.

Here's a few pics we took at the house after returning

Nate's not too grown up to mess around with his baby brother though. I don't think they ever outgrow that! :)





Nathan, we love you and it's so good to have you home!