It's a Girl!

(No, I'm not pregnant!)

Our family had a great thing happen today. We met our cousin, Elle. But before I tell you how wonderful our day went, I need to back up a bit.

Rewind to a week and a half ago.

I had gotten up and was doing my morning ritual of checking my email. In my box, I had a message on my facebook account asking for information on my family tree. It was a really nice note asking me about my Aunt. She gave her name, a little bit of information about herself, and then told me that she believed she was my cousin.

I couldn't believe it. All my life, my brothers and I were the only grandchildren on my fathers side. My dad and his sister, Andy, were the only children. Andy, we thought, never had any kids. So you could imagine my surprise to hear that there was someone else. I clicked on her picture to enlarge it and I was in complete shock. The person in the picture was a young version of my aunt.

After emailing this person back and enlisting my mom as a spy (seriously, she needs to go into PI as a profession!) we found out that my Aunt had a baby girl she had given to another family. Nobody new this. My parents were married at the time Andy gave birth, but they were living clear across the country while my dad was serving in the Army. Andy and my grandparents kept this secret all these years. My Grandparents passed away many years ago, Andy passed away in 2001, and my dad passed away in 2003. My mom, my brothers and I are the only ones still living that the private investigator had told her about.

Long story short...we have spent the past week and a half emailing back and forth. Today she came to town and we were all able to meet.

We had a great visit. My mom and I were able to introduce her to her birth-mother through stories and pictures. We talked for hours, had lunch together and just had a fantastic time. I felt like we had known each other our whole life. Before she had to leave, some other family members were able to come say hello.

The highlight of the day was when she sat down at my piano and played for us. She is a classically trained pianist. I had no idea my piano could sound like that! She is so incredibly talented. The only down side to the piano playing was while we were listening, I said to my mom,"I wish I could play like that." She turned to me and shook her head saying, "You could have if you had never quit taking lessons." (she's never going to let me forget I begged her to quit taking lessons!)

She is not playing the music on the stand, she was playing a memorized piece by Chopin.