Ann Goulding's BROTHER

Ann Goulding (Brent's mom) grew up with Betty and Diane, her two sisters.  She is the middle girl.  You can imagine her surprise one day when she picked up the phone to a man's voice who said, "I am your brother!"  Don Hicken was born to Thora Tetley and had never told a soul. Not being married at the time, she gave her baby boy up for adoption, thinking he would have a better life with someone else.  Don and his wife had served a Family History mission in SLC and in doing his geneology, he found out through his mother's name on his birth certificate that he had three living sisters!

We got to meet Don and his family in July.  He lives in Texas with his wife, has grown up and raised his own five sons in the church, and is the nicest guy ever.  It was so fun to meet a new uncle and some new cousins.  Ann hadn't been doing well for quite some time, but we know she was hanging on for this special meeting to get all four siblings together at least one time in this life.

Five of the eight of Cal and Ann's kids were able to be there for the reunion.  We had Costa Vida lunch and a great time visiting and connecting with these new people who we instantly loved.

Our girls had a fun time hanging out with the Texas cousins who we rarely get to see, and we ended up helping Ian's family out (the perplexed lad) and taking him home to Elko with us that night after Youth Conference.

It was a great day.  Ann really didn't know if she would make it to the park, and then even if she did, she didn't know if she could stay longer than an hour or so--but she ended up staying and visiting for hours.  It was a miracle.  We had such a great day with this side of the family, and now have many new friends on facebook whom we are related to!

On the way back to Elko we had to stop to meet our new little cousin Ollie, born to Shafer and Lindsey.  He's their FIFTH boy!  He's precious, and grandbaby #30.  We had to take a picture of #1 and #30 together.

Family is everything!