It was meant to happen. There wasn't any crying. There was laughing, hugging, joking -- all the things you'd expect from a family.

We are all comfortable in each other's presence and there's a lot of laughing and joking

... it looked at me as it passed, smiling in that crazy-happy way that dogs do. And I started laughing. I mean, how can you not laugh at a dog running on the beach? But I was also kind of crying, too. Laughing and crying simultaneously hurts. It hurts and it's confusing.

We were laughing and crying in disbelief.

All of us were farmed out to relatives or foster homes. We've had an interesting life individually. We didn't grow up together, with the exception of two brothers who were in the same foster home.

He was probably a little apprehensive. It took a little time after his adopted mom passed before he tried to find us. And he said it took him two months to make contact after he paid an agency to find us.