Friend Making Monday (a week late)

This is last week's FMM because I completely spaced on doing it since I had just arrived in Oregon and had a lot of other things on my mind, so here you go!  And I think this topic is perfect since I'm currently spending lots of time with family and friends that I consider family!

If you’ve taken part in FMM then you know the rules. If you’re new, please take a moment to answer this week’s question on your own blog then add your link in the comments section here at: www.alltheweigh.com so we can all see your FMM questions and answers. Please invite your blog readers to add their links here too so everyone has to opportunity to be seen. The idea is to connect with other awesome bloggers so take a moment to post your own FMM post and comment on a couple of other posts. Now it’s time for this week’s topic!

All About Family

1. How many siblings do you have? Tell us about them. I have 2 brothers.  First there's David.  In the past he made some bad decisions, but he's since turned his life around completely and used those bad life choices to make the best choices ever.  He now has his master's degree in social work and works for a University.  He's also working to get custody of his son.  My other brother is Alan.  He has pretty much always made the right decisions in his life.  He watched me and David and did not follow our examples, thank goodness.  He's a dental hygienist and is married with 2 wonderful children.

2. Do you have kids? If so, how many? not unless you consider cats as children, in which case I have 2.

3. Share one thing you love about each of your parents. my dad is my rock and my role model.  I've always wanted to be like my dad, even to the point of adopting some of his habits...like eating the tails of shrimp, much to the dismay of most of my friends when we go out to eat seafood and I'm stealing their uneaten shrimp tails off their plates.  my mom is my mom.  I love everything about her.  I am basically a younger (albeit more cynical) version of her.

4. How close do you live to your nearest relative?  Technically, I live about an hour and a half from my mom's brother, my uncle, but I haven't seen him since I was 6 months old and he's got some prejudices that would keep us from having a relationship (he doesn't like tattoos and I have a LOT of them, for starters).  So, I live about 2300 miles away from my nearest family that I have a relationship with.

5. Does your family have any particular traditions that you’d hate to miss? If so, what are they?  My family doesn't really have any hardset traditions.  They do like to get as many people as possible together at some point NEAR thanksgiving, but since I left shortly after high school I haven't been able to make it at thanksgiving.  So, really, the only family gatherings I am able to attend are the family BBQs we do at my brother Alan's house when I'm in town for my visits.  And I love the family BBQs.

6. Share an odd fact about your childhood.  I don't know.  I was what was called a "latchkey" kid for most of my childhood.  Also, I just found out last week that my mom was a stay at home mom until my youngest brother started school.  I don't remember this.  Where the heck was I during my first 8 years of life?  Geez.

7. Did you have pets when you were growing up? Do you have any now? If so, tell us about them.  we had parakeets and gerbils.  I talked my mom into letting me have a pet rat in high school.  she did not like rats because of their hairless tails, but she fell in love with Quigley because he had such a sweet disposition and personality.  we also had a dog named Peanut who was pretty much a doofus.  I currently have 2 cats: Vladimir and Oliver who are total mama's boys and I seriously can't love them any more than I love them.  They're my babies.

Now it’s your turn to answer this week’s questions! Don’t forget to come back and leave your link in the comments!
Happy Monday!