Our little one was just five months old when she took her first flight.  We went to Phoenix to see my family, whom we had not gotten to visit with since our wedding four years earlier.  That morning before our flight she ate her first real food.  So it was a special time with several firsts.  I chose this picture because I have said it numerous times — wolves always find me, or I find them.  Forgive the grainy picture but as you can see, my spirit animal was present the very first time I took my little wolf cub on a plane.  Seeing my family was so important to me.  My mother was going to go but her health was not well enough to allow her to make it.  It was March and the desert was in bloom.  Seeing all the flowers on the cacti and the birds they attracted were magical.  My first cousins have a beautiful home and they showed us around their property, explaining about all the different types of flora and fauna which was fascinating.  That first day my second and third cousins came over and we all had a great family dinner.  My first cousin made a pistachio cake that my husband literally devoured.  Many of my fondest childhood memories are of spending time with my uncle, aunt, and cousins in California and Arizona when I was seven.  My uncle got me a camera, which began my love of pictures; something he and my mother shared.  And I will never forget driving through the great redwood forests.  Time and distance may have separated us but the bond remained unbroken.  My baby doll carries our family name and it was so good to be with them again.  The American writer Alex Haley said, “In every conceivable manner, the family is link to our past, bridge to our future.”  And with my little one, my precious small family has been reborn, like the rising from the ashes of the phoenix.