So if you know me, then you know that my family is the most important thing on the planet to me! And when I say family, I don't just mean my husband, kids, parents & sisters ... I mean all 50+ cousins! There are a lot of us cousins but we are really close and love hanging out with eachother. I don't have much family here in Southern Cali, they are all up North near Sacramento, more on the country side, rather than in the city! My mom is one of 7 siblings from Oklahoma & Kansas, they moved to SoCal when she was little but eventually almost everyone ended up in NorCal. When I was 8 my Grandpa moved up there too so that meant that we had to go up there to see him - we were VERY close with him so we went up there several times a year. I LOVED it there, I had so many cousins to play with and there were always fun adventures to be had, especially with my cousin Jakki who is 6 months older than me. Jakki & I are still very close, except now we both have little girls - Karina is 6 and her daughter McKenna is 5 - they are the best of cousins! When I had Karina I wanted her know how it was to have so many cousins to play with and to know how much fun it is to be part of such a huge family that is so close. Unfortunately she only has a few cousins here in SoCal, and only one that somewhat her age ... so what does that mean .... it means we have to carry on the tradition of traveling to NorCal to be with our family! Karina LOVES it there, just as much as I did growing up. She immediately turns into a little Country Bumpkin when we get there - playing outside till it's dark, getting dirty and not caring, finding weird bugs and making her boy cousins catch them, throwing rocks, swinging on tire swings, the list goes on & on ... I love that she gets to experience fun with her cousins the way I did, she and McKenna are inseperable from the moment we get there till the moment we leave!
Having a large family that actually loves to hang out with eachother means that there's a lot of fun times but when something tragic happens to one of us, all of us are affected and we become even closer. 2009 was a rough year for my family, there were several things that happend that caused us to lean on eachother for support but the biggest was the passing of my cousin Tommy at the end of October. Tommy was the youngest of all of us cousins and the baby of the family. His death was not only a shock to all of us but totally devastating. We all learned that we have to be there for each other no matter what, our job is to pick each other up and carry each other when we can't carry ourselves.
When we found out what happened, my sister & I knew we needed to get to NorCal as soon as we can to be with our family. We left Halloween morning with Karina & 7 week old Elijah in tow. It was a rough week and we have dozens of kids in the family so we knew we couldn't just skip Halloween this year (although all the adults wanted to), we needed to bring some kind of fun in midst of this horror we were dealing with. So we all met at my cousin Richard's house to gather the kids to go trick or treating, he lives in a little town called Sutter Creek - it looks like it's straight out of an old movie. We ended up having the best Halloween! There were about 25 of us trick or treating through the town and the kids had a blast, the small towns really go all out! We walked down the middle of the streets, we didn't have to worry about getting ran over or little punks trying to ruin our night, just good ol' clean fun - exactly what our family needed!
A few days later we had a Celebration of Life for Tommy, lots of family, friends & food - not a pity party but a day to remember our funny, witty and handsome baby cousin! WE LOVE YOU!
Halloween pics to be added...
Having a large family that actually loves to hang out with eachother means that there's a lot of fun times but when something tragic happens to one of us, all of us are affected and we become even closer. 2009 was a rough year for my family, there were several things that happend that caused us to lean on eachother for support but the biggest was the passing of my cousin Tommy at the end of October. Tommy was the youngest of all of us cousins and the baby of the family. His death was not only a shock to all of us but totally devastating. We all learned that we have to be there for each other no matter what, our job is to pick each other up and carry each other when we can't carry ourselves.
When we found out what happened, my sister & I knew we needed to get to NorCal as soon as we can to be with our family. We left Halloween morning with Karina & 7 week old Elijah in tow. It was a rough week and we have dozens of kids in the family so we knew we couldn't just skip Halloween this year (although all the adults wanted to), we needed to bring some kind of fun in midst of this horror we were dealing with. So we all met at my cousin Richard's house to gather the kids to go trick or treating, he lives in a little town called Sutter Creek - it looks like it's straight out of an old movie. We ended up having the best Halloween! There were about 25 of us trick or treating through the town and the kids had a blast, the small towns really go all out! We walked down the middle of the streets, we didn't have to worry about getting ran over or little punks trying to ruin our night, just good ol' clean fun - exactly what our family needed!
A few days later we had a Celebration of Life for Tommy, lots of family, friends & food - not a pity party but a day to remember our funny, witty and handsome baby cousin! WE LOVE YOU!
Halloween pics to be added...
Thomas Edward Fry 1982 - 2009
1st Generation Cousins (missing a few)
We made all of them ... (still missing some)
in the saloon for a much need drink!
Jakki & Dan Dan McKenna & Karina
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