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REAL McRollers and Readers thank you for all the wonderful feedback.


Family Tree

"Mommy!" DJ greeted Catherine excitedly as soon as she stepped inside the door. "Guess what?"

She hugged him and placed a kiss on his head, even as she opened an arm to Angie who was racing towards her from the kitchen. "I don't know, you'll have to tell me," she said with a smile at their long running exchange.

"We have a really cool project idea to do!"

"You do?" She bent to nuzzle Cammie's face and receive a doggy kiss as Angie hopped in place.

"Grace is taking a class at college about family trees - gene-ology and she gave us the idea."

"Genealogy," his mother corrected gently with a grin. Grace had picked the kids up for a little shave ice outing that afternoon and dropped them off to Steve at HQ afterwards.

"Genealogy." DJ smiled. "Anyway, she did a chart with everybody on it and showed us it on her phone and me and Angie want to do one, too."

"Hey," Steve greeted Catherine as he came in from the kitchen and stepped up to peck her lips. "Getting briefed on Operation Family Tree, I see?"

"I am." She smiled at the kids. "What a wonderful idea. Let me get changed really quick and we'll figure out what we need for your project during dinner."

"Daddy made the fish he caught with Uncle Chin," Angie offered. "And we got the yummy mango salsa from Mister Jirou's."

"That sounds delicious." She smiled at Steve over their daughter's head. "I'm starving. Who else is hungry?"

When both kids announced "Me!" with an added raised hand from Angie, she ruffled DJ's hair and went upstairs to change.


After dinner, the kids sat at the table with a huge piece of poster board in front of them and the box of craft supplies at the ready. "Grace had a chart with just names and dates, but can we use pictures?" DJ asked.

"That's a great idea, honey," Catherine smiled. "I'll grab the photo printer and get started with that while Daddy helps you with the chart."

"Yay!" Angie raised both hands. While she recognized a lot of names and words pertaining to her family, she was excited with her brother's suggestion and gave him a spontaneous hug. "I love using pictures."

"I thought you might," DJ grinned at her usual bubbly enthusiasm. "The family tree I looked up has pictures," he swiveled Catherine's tablet to show his sister. "It looks really nice."

"So where do you think we start?" Steve guided.

"We make a list of everyone?" DJ offered.

"Excellent," his mother said as she returned with the printing device and attached it to her phone.

"Then we can cross them off once they're on the tree." He was getting more excited by the minute. He was always happy when he thought of how many people were in his family, who he loved and who loved him back, and the idea of the family tree had him smiling ear to ear.

"Perfect." Steve watched as DJ readied his pencil over his notebook and began to write, a smile on his own lips. "Who do you start with?"

"Us. Me and Angie. 'Cause Grace started with herself and went from there."

"Okay, let's get this family tree blooming," Catherine said and both kids grinned with delight.


"Joanie goes right here," Angie pointed below Mary and Aaron, having gotten a beat on how people were arranged. Her brother applied glue and passed her a copy of the latest school photo of their cousin.

"Now we draw the line," he said and carefully made a connecting line from the one between his aunt and uncle's photos and the one of a smiling Joan.

After that was complete, DJ looked between his parents. "Should we use a different color for each part of our family? Like we used black for us, so maybe green for Aunt Jenna and the kids, blue for Uncle Danny, Aunt Gabby, Grace and all the New Jersey relatives?"

Catherine shared a proud look with Steve at their son's organizational skills shining through. "What a good idea."

"That's absolutely something Mommy would do," Steve pointed out. "I've gotten enough color coded spreadsheets from her over the years to agree it's an excellent way to identify different branches of the family."

"Thanks!" DJ pointed to the box of markers. "Angie, you pick a color for Aunt Jenna and the kids."

"Red, cause that's Jacob's favorite color." The five year old picked up the red marker and passed it to him. "And blue for Uncle Danno, Aunt Gabby and Grace, 'cause Nonna says he has pretty blue eyes."

"She'll love that you remember that," Catherine kissed her head.

"I 'member because his afghan is blue and I asked why," Angie said matter of factly. "Can we do Uncle Chin, Auntie Leilani and Auntie Kono and Uncle Adam next?"


"We got so many people." Angie beamed while she finished a drawing of a flower between the photos of Deb and Joan.

"We do, we're really lucky." DJ picked up a violet marker to complete the rainbow he'd arched across the entire family tree.

"Very, very lucky. I'm drawing hearts because everybody loves us and we love them." She grinned at her brother before choosing a new marker to draw little hearts under the rainbow.

Catherine watched Steve's eyes glint with a contented smile before she bent to kiss each of their children's cheeks. Two of the people she loved more than anyone in the world would never have to feel they had no family again and that made her heart swell with joy. Combined with the fact that Angie, who'd never known anything but unconditional love from a huge family, was generous, kind and appreciative; the thought had brought a soft smile to her lips.

"All done!" Angie announced when she and DJ agreed the decorations on the project were finished.

"You guys, I think this is the best family tree ever." Catherine lifted her phone and motioned for Steve to lift the poster board so she could photograph it. "Let's take a picture."

"Mommy's right," Steve said. "It's definitely the best family tree I've ever seen."

"Yay! Mommy, show Grace it."

"Yeah, it was kinda her idea," DJ agreed. "If we didn't see her project, we wouldn't have thought of doing one."

"Gracie will love it," Steve said as Catherine texted the photo to their niece. "Hey, I have an idea."

"What, Daddy?" Angie asked.

"I think we need to frame this and send a copy of the picture to everyone. We can email them to Nonna and everyone in New Jersey and Aunt Mary so she can print one for their house and Aunt Deb's."

"That's a super great idea!" DJ was beaming.

"The great idea was making this family tree," his father told him, holding both fists out so each child could bump one.

"It was so fun," Angie's smile echoed her brother's.

"We should take pictures to school to show Mr. Francis and Mr. S.," the nine year old said.

"Yay! I wanna do that! Can we?"

Catherine kissed her daughter's cheek and smiled at Steve. "Of course you can. Now you two go put the art supplies away and we'll put the poster on daddy's desk until tomorrow when I can get it to the framer. It's almost story time."

As the kids ran off discussing the family tree, Catherine turned to Steve. Running her hands up his chest to rest on his shoulders, she smiled. "Never thought to count everyone before. So many people."

Steve kissed her softly and rested his hands on her hips. "Not too many years ago I'd have counted five. You, Danny, Gracie, Chin and Kono."

"Now we have a huge family." She indicated the tree adorned with images of their family, both blood and ohana. Her lips turned up on a grin. "Including Three dogs, three cats, a rabbit and…" The children had included all the pets in their lives on the family tree. He laughed and her eyes lit with joy at how Steve's look of amusement was also filled with contentment.

Pecking his lips she giggled and added, "One very special goat."

# End thanks for reading


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