Family

People come to be part of a family in many different ways:  birth, adoption, marriage, happenstance.  I find it interesting that Merriam-Webster's on line dictionary has eight definitions, but none of them construes all of what I think of as family.  Shortly after I began this blog I sent email to many of the members of my family warning them of possible posts in which they might have a role.  Today, I'm gonna follow through on that threat.  Since I come from a large family and so does Bud, I'm not including aunts, uncles and cousins at this time or I may never get this post completed.


So here is my shout out to my brother Harry and his wife Sarah, their daughter Debbie and her children daughter Jessie and son John and Jessie's son Max.  Next is their daughter Melanie and her husband Tony and Melanie's daughter Erin and Melanie and Tony's daughter Renee and son Joshua.  Then there is Harry's son Joey and his wife Pat and their son Matt and daughter Veronica. And there is their son Danny and his partner Liz and Liz's daughters Kaitlyn and Brittany.  And last, but most definitely not least is Wendy and her husband John and their son Thomas and daughter Hannah. Whew!
  
On to my brother Glenn.  First we have daughter Shell and her husband Don.  We also have son Rob and his wife Bette and their daughters Abby and Katie.  This branch all came from Glenn's union with his first wife, Mickey.  With his current wife, Sally, we have their daughter Nancy and her husband Jerry and their son Colby.  And then there is their son Glenn and his wife Lei and their son Ben and their daughter Mei.  Are we confused yet?


Next in line is Joe, who unfortunately is no longer with us, and his wife Martha.  Their first son is Robert who is currently married to Donna, but has daughter Jessie with his first wife Kay, and son Matt with his second wife Lisa.  Matt now has a daughter Montana.  Joe and Martha's other son is Sam, who is married to Tonya.  Sam has daughter Heather with his first wife (whose name I think is Michelle).  Heather is married to Ricky and they have daughter Sami-Jo and son Landon.  Ricky also brought daughter Alisha and sons Christian and Caleb into the family.  Sam also has daughter Christy from his first marriage.  Christy is married to Joseph and they have a son Zech.  Sam and Tonya have daughter Kelsey.


Finally we have Cathy and her husband George.  They have son Geo, who is married to Elisa. Geo and Elisa have a daughter Aubrie and are expecting a son in the near future.


Cindy is not married and has no children.  I am married to Bud, and we also have no children. Tons of love to my family.


And now to equally embarrass those members of the family I married into.  This requires a little bit of a notation.  For reasons I won't go into here, we do not associate with Bud's sisters or any members of their families.  I'm listing them here, because they are obviously part of his family.


Bud's oldest sister is Cheryl, who is married to Matt.  They have two daughters, Becky and Cassie.  Next is his sister Debbie and her husband Robert.  They also have two daughters, Elizabeth and Katie.


We do know and love Bud's brother Mike and his wife Andee and their two daughters Kalyn and Melanie.  Bud also had a brother Kevin who was married to Kathy, but they had no children and Kevin died shortly after their marriage.


That's a pretty big group of people.  We have more than one Debbie, Elizabeth, George, Glenn, Jessica, John, Joseph, Katie, Matthew, Melanie and Robert, plus a Kaitlyn and a Kalyn.  As I get older and as more babies are born, I can't guarantee my feeble brain will retain all these precious people.  Almost all of these people are treasures who have made my life better.  I can never express what it means to me to be a part of such an unbelievable group.  How sad and lonely it must be for someone who is an only child.