The Adventures of Uncle Brian

As I Michigan resident I rarely had a chance to see my eleven (soon to be twelve) nephews and/or nieces, since all of them live along the Pacific coast, from L.A. to Portland* to Seattle. However, now that I'm living in a house with three (soon to be four) nephews and/or nieces, I tend to see a whole lot more of them. So I thought I'd post a few videos of what my life is like when I don the mantle of Uncle Brian.

Last weekend I went to the L.A. Zoo with three (soon to be four) nephews and/or nieces in tow, and one of the highlights of the trip was a visit to the serval cage ("a medium-sized African wild cat," quoth Wikipedia). We arrived just as the zookeeper had thrown the serval a dead rabbit to eat, and just like a cat he wanted to fling it around and play with it before eating. I shot this video, during which my 2 1/2 year-old nephew Gideon ascertained that the serval must have been dancing, and that it's "Dancing Time!" (in this funny quasi-Cookie Monster voice that he sometimes adopts when he's excited). Allison and Gideon then showed me their best Serval Dance:



Even before I left Michigan, I had a rare chance to see my Seattle nieces and nephew. They took a family vacation to Palmyra/Kirtland and I cut across Canada to meet up with them. The video below was taken in the Palmyra Inn, where my niece Ashley came down first thing in the morning to tell me about her dream featuring a printer that can turn into a shop full of earrings, among other things. She recounted the dream, after which I said she should also tell Grandma (a.k.a. my mom) about it, since she has an extended cameo. Ashley said no - it's just too draining to explain a dream a second time. I said it was a shame that I hadn't filmed the first telling. A few minutes later she sheepishly approached me that she might be able to muster up the strength for one more telling of the dream if I were to make a movie out of it. (Note: I received no good nor services from Honey Bunches of Oats for the product placement in the following video.)



(Maybe I should illustrate that dream for my dream blog. Remember that thing? Yeah, me neither.)

*The Portland nephews (they're a strict no-niece family) formerly lived in Minnesota, and I did make it up there a few times during my Michigan tenure.