my bro (a.k.a. the joe and angie show)

Of all my brothers and sisters, Lincoln is the one I've grown up with the longest. That's because he was born about 2 years after I was and we've been about 2 years apart, ever since. When you are the oldest kids in a family of eleven, this is important, because Linc and I grew up in a different family than my younger siblings are growing up in. That's the nature of time. But having grown up in the same family, we experienced a similar childhood, and that means something.

There are a lot of great pictures of the two of us in the early years. Sadly they are stashed away in Utah somewhere so I can't pull any of those out for you to look at, but they document the jolly times we had together growing up, and the awesome seventies wardrobes we sported back then.

Through the years we've had many good times, walking back and forth from school, swimming in the canal by our house (probably a pretty dirty one at that) while looking for garter snakes to catch and bring home (my mom loved it when they would escape in the house) playing all sorts of games, daring each other to eat cat food- you know, all that good sibling growing up kind of stuff.

Lincoln and I served LDS missions at the same time, and so got to share the ups and downs of a missionary life through letters and photographs. When we got home we both went to work at the same place and had some good times living through some inter-office drama and such. We like to sit around and hash out the meaning of the universe. We liked to double date, except that Ben says it's not such a great thing when we do that because Lincoln and I go off on some conversational tangent leaving those not experienced in our journey just waiting around the water cooler for us to get back.

I have a hard time putting down in words exactly what's so great about having Lincoln for a brother. Lincoln is an incredible person with so many talents. We have a close but undemanding relationship and have seen each other through good and bad times. What really can I say, though, to get across what I want to say? Maybe this... Right after I was married (seconds after, I mean) and family and friends were coming up to congratulate Ben and me, amid all the joy and emotion of that day, Lincoln's hug was what finally made me cry.

Today is his birthday. I hope it's a good one. Happy Birthday, Lincoln.