...guess whose back...

"Papa Joe is here to stay!!!"

I come from a lovely family of 8...

My older brother Joey is 30 years old. He's a special brother... things would be a lot different if he was your normal thirty year old brother, but we are that much more blessed with a brother like him.

Then I have a y0unger brother (4 actually, but the one after me) Muka who will be 20 this year. He's going to school full time at Snow College with my next younger brother, Robert, who after "growing up" and graduating, now goes by "ROB" LOL. He'll be 19 this year...

Then there's my little sister Sweetie-Pie... her real name is Elissa-Leslie but ever since we could remember, my Dad called her Sweetie-Pie and the name just stuck... She'll be 18 this year (WOW! Never thought about it til now...) and LOVES to play volleyball. I admire her for her talent and desire to play. I love playing volleyball for fun but I never got into playing for school or anything like that. Hopefully she'll be able to go to college on a scholarship...

Then there's our littlest brother, Duke. He's 12. Trust, he is THEE BABY of the family. He's so much younger than all of us older ones but he's like everyone's best friend.

So... being that there's six of us kids, my parents had to make a lot of sacrifices for us growing up. One huge sacrifice was moving all 8 of us to Utah. We were all born in Hawaii and lived in a small three-bedroom house in Waipahu. Looking at our old house whenever we go back home to visit... we would've never fit in there as we all grew up... but if we had to, we would've.

My Dad had a really good construction business out there every since I could remember. Everyone morning when we woke up, he'd be gone already and we wouldn't see him til the sun went down. This gave my mom the oppurtunity to be a stay home mom for about 13 years.

When they decided to move to Utah, my parents pretty much sold all of my Dad's business things... trucks, machines, everything...and we packed up and moved up here to a house that they bought prior to us making the final move. This would be the same house they're living in today.

Well, after about a year (I think) of trying to adjust to everything, my parents decided that things weren't working out so well and it might've just been a better idea for my Dad to go back to Hawaii and get his business back up. At the time, my Mom got a job with Delta. It was a blessing in disguise. It all worked out! They decided that that's what was going to happen.

So... for the past nine and half years, my Dad has been commuting back forth and my mom's still at Delta with her year 2000 senority. :) She keeps telling me to hurry and get hired at Delta so Dad can still fly and she can quit LOL but I've given up on Delta. I swear the people who hire for Delta has read my resume about twenty times and rips it up right after!

My brother Muka gave a talk this past Father's Day and came up with some pretty interesting information about my Dad after commuting for ten years:

- My Dad travels an average of 3 times a week... 9 times a month... 108 times and year... and after ten years, he's spent 1,080 days traveling. If you calculate it, he's spent almost 3 years on a plane! Can you believe it?!?!

- The flight is about six hours one-way. He spends an average of 18 hours a week on the plane... 72 hours a month... 864 hours a year... and after ten years, he's spent 8,640 hours on flights. Could you cut out that many hours of your life to spend it on a plane?!? OH.EM.GEE!

- He travels about 3,000 miles per trip. In a week he travels 9,000 miles... 36,000 miles in a month... 432,000 miles in year... and after ten years, he's traveled at least 4,320,000 miles! If we could rack up some Skymiles off of this, we could fly all over the world! All 8 of us! LOL. Okay, maybe not but could you imagine?!

Pretty cool right?!?

Anyways, so after ten years, he's decided that it's time to come back home. He misses me, I mean us! LOL. But today it was official. He interveiwed for a job up here a few weeks ago and then went back to Hawaii to finish up some last minute jobs... and today he told us "HE'S HERE TO STAY!" :)

You would think that he missed out on a few things since he was only home on the weekends, but he didn't. He always came back whenever we had something special going on or if he knew one of his kids needed him to be here. What's even better... he'll actually see his grandkids grow up! And they LOVE when Papa's home. So do us kids.

This really is a very exciting change in our family. Now we'll get to see Dad whenever we want! So will my Mom. She's one of the strongest women I know. All those days without my Dad and six annoying but beautiful kids...LOL... I hate it when Matt's gone even for a weekend! But she did mention to me once that it's made their marriage a lot stronger. I hope one day I could be as strong as my Mom... and a dedicated provider like my Dad (Well, Matt could do that part LOL).

I truly am blessed with the greatest family ever. It comforts me knowing that I'll see them after this life and be with my parents for eternity. And not only that, but they'll be able to enjoy their grandkids for eternity too. Of course we have our moments when we don't all get along, but in the end, we know that family is the only thing you have in the world. They will always be there no matter what. And with the examples that my parents have set for us, I only pray that someday I could do the same for my kids and my siblings can do the same for theirs.