Getting to know more family

My biological dad flew up from Augusta, Georgia to spend 10 days in Seattle after 25 years away. We've been keeping in touch over the phone for the last ten years and he finally had a chance to come for a visit. Dave's son, Josh (19), joins the Navy next month and wanted to see Seattle and visit all the local family before his 4-year commitment. His daughter Hannah (17) was on a mission trip to Haiti and so couldn't join us but there is hope that she'll be up here in the next year.


I was telling Felix about them as we circled the airport drive to pick them up and Felix asked if his Uncle Josh was a he or a she, and when I said he, Felix asked if his hair was like Uncle Tyler's! Then he asked if he would chase him like Tyler does. At first he was so deadpan I wasn't sure what he meant but then I remembered the way Felix last taunted Tyler into chasing him down and tickling him. I wasn't sure what to say. Dana, the girls, and I had met them all in Florida some years ago and my shy teenage bio-brother, Josh had said only a handful of words to me then. Luckily, he surpassed the previous total of words just on the way home and we all got well acquainted. Both Grandpa Dave and Uncle Josh took to their roles very well over the next week as everyone got to know each other. Felix relayed all his vast knowledge of dinosaurs and transformers to a fresh set of ears (thank goodness, as mom's brain was melting from Felix's recent non-stop motor-mouth). They played and snuggled over books and Grandpa even held a few babies when the AMAT group met at my house for the monthly Toddler Baking Class. I thought these two bachelors would have culture shock when 9 moms, 9 toddlers, and almost as many younger siblings arrived but they seemed right at home. The biggest culture shock might have been the fact that we recycle so diligently here and we actually believe that global warming is real! Guess we are a bunch of conspiracy theorist nuts! (I'd like to think that we converted them to environmentalists and that they'll take it home and it'll spread like a virus across the South, but then I think they'd be hoping I'd be saved by now and that didn't happen over this trip either!) All in all, it was wonderful and Felix and I were both pouty and sad the day they left.