Family!!!

Alright, I know you all know, but family is so very astronomically important!

I have 8 older brothers and sisters, 3 brothers and 5 sisters. Of these for the past year I've kept in touch regularly with 7 of them. I have one older brother, the black sheep of the family if you will, that I hadn't talked to in a while. In fact no one in our family has--my sisters would try to call him and he wouldn't return the calls. After a while I think that pretty much everyone gave up to an extent.

Well, this last Tuesday I started texting his step-daughter, my niece, who I had a pretty good reputation with. Then I decided to try and give Ryan a call (which I had never actually tried) and see if he'd answer. Well, at first he didn't and I was a little disappointed, but not too suprised.

Then, on Thursday night he called me back! I was so excited!! He called and we talked for about 30 seconds but he was at work and I was cleaning so we informed each other that we had text and we started texting each other.

I was so happy to talk to him again! It feels like a small part of me that has been a little missing is back--it just feels right to have three brothers again when I know I was supposed to have three.

So we texted most of the night while we were at work, just talking about how life was going and catching up on things. He is in the army and he is going overseas soon, so he was especially glad that he got a chance to talk to me now, just in case things don't go well over there. (I definately hope they do! They should be alright!)

He learned that I would be in Washington, where he lives, around his birthday time and he got so excited! We made some tentative, maybe-ish, plans to see him (I still need to talk to you Val--I plan on calling you today) and he was just so happy.

It turns out that he was missing me, and family in general, as much-if not more- as I was missing him.

I look forward to talking to him some more and catching up on lost time! Especially before he leaves.