Uncle Alejandro

This one takes a bit of explaining. The setup: Rikki is a Lady Gaga fan (see Day 117). We'll start with that. Not Rikki's typical genre of music, but she loves her talent. Last summer (2010) we drove to San Diego for a family reunion. Having grown up in San Diego, we often joke about Dale being mistaken for being Mexican instead of Hawaiian. Rikki put Lady Gaga's Alejandro song on, and we all sang along. We then joked about calling Dale by the name Alejandro.

Our Norton Family Reunion was a pretty big gathering. My parents had five children (and a Native American foster sister for many years, but that's yet another story). We were all there with our spouses and our children (with the exception and a shout-out to my niece Emily who had already left for college at BYU Hawaii). So, two grandparents, five children, five children in-law, and seventeen grandchildren. Yup, 29 out of 30 of us. And we spent all week together. It was awesome.

Dale told the nieces and nephews that he was no longer "Uncle Dale," but they should now call him "Uncle Alejandro." And so they did. Laughing at him and with him the entire week. At the end of the week I put together a slideshow of some of the festivities and included a special little segment just for Uncle Alejandro. It's silly, but so are we. Here's a link to that segment:

So... when Dale dressed up in a Mexican poncho on Day Five, we had to give a little shout out, chuckle, and tip of the sombrero to Alejandro.

And as long as I'm tipping sombreros, I'll give a big booyah to the best Spanish teacher I know. My little brother, Senor Norton, teaches high school Spanish for Mesa Public Schools in Arizona. Check out his podcasts here or search for Norton Spanish in iTunes.