I was ridiculously lucky this week to see my Mom’s brother and his wife yesterday because they are in North Carolina for the Mother Earth News Fair in Asheville. (Which I really wish I had a way to attend also…)

Mom called me last week and told me Gene and Margie were coming out here and I was all over being there to introduce my aunt and uncle to my spouse, who has only met my dad, step-mom, mom and sister. He’s a local and we’ve visited a lot of his family. Not so much mine. I swear, honey, I actually HAVE family.

We went to Mom’s yesterday.

My uncle was there with his wife, and I hadn’t seen him in what? Almost three decades?

These are the people that would be you friends even if they weren’t your family.

Just saying.

I lived in New Mexico when my uncle lived in Rio Rancho. We touched base a couple of times (Ham-Doe and why won’t he eat my spaghetti sauce????).

He married my Aunt Margie, who I’d e-mailed occasionally, but only met face to face for the first time yesterday. She and my uncle are (were, because retirement) registered nurses and have worked in all grades of atmospheres; hospital, education, prison, Department of Labor…

It was amazing to me to talk to people that GET what I deal with on the daily.

But my uncle? He was why I picked up a camera and went nuts with it.

There is a picture of the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse at Mom’s house that he’d (my uncle) shot some twenty years ago that motivated me to go pro in my photography.

I don’t shoot like I should, these days because I have so much going on at the day job. I really wanted to include a pictorial, but I am too tired and too lazy to go there, soooo…

At any rate…We all have people that are family because we pick them; and then there are the family that are family that we want to be friends with because they are simply that cool/amazing/loving/open…

Love you Gene and Margie….

I love you both!!! ❤ ❤ ❤

xoxo

Jules xoxoxox!