What is a "family"?

I have several different versions of what a family is and what it can be. I consider those I am blood related to my family, automatically. They belong to me and I them in some way. Yet they are only a distant version of the word, for I know my extended family very little except for a few. When I think of family I think of my immediate family instinctively. I picture my mother and father, sisters and my brother. They are my family, they have made me into who I am for the most part. I then think of a few individuals that I have "adopted" into my family. They are as much a part of me as my blood family is. I think of one of my high school friends and her younger sister who i love dearly, and I think of my roommate that I have lived with since my first semester here at BYU Idaho. I call them the sisters God forgot to give me. I was born to four sisters, but I have grown into seven. There is no one definition to the word "family". It has a different connotation with every individual. It can even mean several different things to one person like it does to me. I think the basis for the word lies in a feeling of belonging. Our family is whoever we belong to in one way or another.