Family

When I think about family, all the old television shows come to mind. Rosanne, as a lower income family, struggles to get by with three kids. I still watch that show and relate each character to my family as I grew up. Then there is “All in the Family” with Archie Bunker. His relationship and actions with his family remind me of my grandfather on my mother’s side. Everything from how he centered the family, to the ridiculous things he would do. I’m sure I view my husband and kids the same way as I portrayed my family growing up as if we were the Conner family. If you asked my husband he would probably say we relate more to the Bundies or Major Dad. Whatever family we relate to, there is one common thing we all agree on. That our family comes first.

My father comes from a family were there is two brothers and five sisters. My mother comes from a family with two sisters and two brothers. I am one of two sisters and one brother and my husband is the youngest of six brothers. Each of us, on both my side and my husband’s side all have three children on average. Now if you take just the first cousins from both my family and my husband’s family, from aunts and uncles to grandchildren, there are roughly 83 people in our immediate family. Yes our family is large, but there is over 3,000 miles in between some of us and on average, we never get more than a third of them together at a time. When we do get together there is nothing but laughter. We all have a bunch of new things to fill each other in with. We love to tell jokes and laugh at each other’s expense. We have always said, if you don’t have a good sense of humor, you are in the wrong family.

I cherish my family more and more everyday and know that every moment spent with them is a blessing. I try not to take any time with them for granted.  We all live far apart, but always know we are only a phone call away. We will be getting together this year for Thanksgiving in Arizona. I can not wait, I’m sure we will all have a blast and all the kids will have fun making new memories with each other. In my opinion, there is nothing better then being with family for the holidays!