San Francisco  - The aunt of Jaycee Dugard said Thursday that the long-term kidnap victim and her two daughters were remarkably well-adjusted, educated and bright.

Tina Dugard said the girl who was kidnapped as an 11-year-old and forced to live in her captor's back yard for 18 years, "remembers us all" and is spending "a joyful time" connecting with her family. The happy times include laughter over pictures when Jaycee was a child to just sitting quietly together with her mother Terry Probyn and her younger sister, Shayna.

"The smile on my sister's face is as wide of the sea," Tina Dugard said. "Her oldest daughter is finally home."

She made the comments in a media statement after spending five days with the family as they try to reconnect with the long-lost woman and the daughters she bore to her captor.

Though none of the three had been allowed to attend school or even see a doctor Tina Dugard described them as "bright and well- informed."

"Jaycee did a truly amazing job with the limited resources and education that she herself had, and we are so proud of her," she said.

In comments earlier to the Orange County Register newspaper, she gave further details of the reunion, but said that they had not talked about what the three had undergone during the years they spent under their captor's control. She described 11-year-old Angel and 15- year-old Starlet, as "educated and bright" and said they could name the constellations and plants around their house.

She also revealed that there was no sense of awkwardness at the reunion. There was an "instant connection ... it was almost genetic ... an instant sense of family for all of us," she said. "There's a sense of comfort and optimism, a sense of happiness. Jaycee and her girls are happy."  dpa