Heading to Phoenix

Dec 10, 2009 by Rochelle

I’m going to Phoenix today for a family reunion! My uncle John and his family are traveling all the way from Australia to be here for Christmas. I haven’t seen them in 13 years and so I didn’t want to pass up this opportunity.

They’re a funny bunch and so much different than my other family members on that side. My dad has three brothers, Bob, Ted, and John — the baby. While my dad and his first two brothers are a lot alike, John is just different.

My dad is a lawyer, my uncle Ted is a lawyer, and for a long time my uncle Bob was a paralegal, but went back to get a masters degree in special education. My uncle John followed in their footsteps and went to CU’s Law School and got his Juris Doctorate. Somehow though, that wasn’t good enough, and went to ASU to get his PhD in psychology. Yeah, let’s just say that I am the first person in my family line to not get an advanced degree. It makes me feel like such a loser with my lame Bachelors. And that’s where he met his life partner Nicola. Together they became psychology professors and when I was a kid they did fun experiments on me and my brother.

They moved off to Florida and taught there and had their first child, a daughter, in the early 90s. Then right before they moved to Australia to teach, they had a son. I only saw Ben as an infant and so this will be my first time really meeting him.

They are very academic people. They are gifted at everything. They are also incredibly active people with a love for life. Not to say that my family isn’t that way, but John’s family tends to be more positive about life and natural. They are naturalists and environmentalists as well. They are also economically conservative and really sound at everything they do. So I’m looking forward to getting to know them a little bit better and see this other side of my family.

So today, I’m traveling with my dad and my uncle Ted (along with their significant others), and then my uncle Bob is driving up to Phoenix from Tucson. There we’ll all meet up with John and his family. We’re staying at this resort and I’m very excited to just relax and spend time with family.

I love this picture of my dad and his brothers! From left to right is: Bob, my dad (Charles), Ted, and John.

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