Day 10: Your Siblings

(My handsome brother and his beautiful family)

I have a great brother. We're 1 yr and 2 weeks apart. Growing up we did NOT get along. We fought constantly. I can say I honestly did not like him very much when we were kids. The fights were vicious, yet I know we still had a lot of fun together did a lot of stupid things together. As we grew we became friends, slowly. Phil has a great sense of humor, he can make anyone laugh, and let me tell you he LOVES his family. He married his high school sweetheart and they have 2 of the most gorgeous little girls who ever walked this earth! (I'm not biased, it's just a fact!).
As a kid he was not exactly a great student, and I only share that with you because my parents worried he had a learning disability...yeah if you call being brillant a disability...no he was just lazy and didn't care. He managed to graduate high school and college was the last thing he wanted to do at that point and the last place he needed to be, so he joined the Army and served 3 years, matured a bit, got married. After he got out of the Army he worked at a few various places (always full time and always hard, manual labor type work). He decided he'd hate it and that he was going to work hard, and go to college and he has! He's working on his nursing degree right now, works at a hospital in their Cardiac Center (he was actually fought over between the Surgical dept. where he was working and the Cardiac Center...he made a great name for himself). He worked the long 12 hour shifts for a year or so and a few months ago when to the Cardiac Center, with a raise and nice hours of 8-5 with weekends and holidays off, all while working on his degree. He's taking a full time load of are you ready for this....17 hours (he's a little bit crazy!). And that's not it....both of his daughters are very active in sports so he coaches, he goes to every practice and game (his older daughter plays baseball well the season's over now, so she did 30 miles from home, so quite the drive).

I truly love my brother and I'm so proud of the man he's become and all that he'll be in the future. It breaks my heart that we're so far away from him and his family. But thank the Lord for technology!!!