August 28th: New Family Members

For the last three summers, we have had a family reunion at my second cousin Kelly's house in Temecula.  My grandfather, Raymond, had a brother Henry who was six years older than he was. Henry married Emily and had three daughters, Carolyn, Anne Marie and Louise.  They were roughly the same ages as my mom and aunt and they were pretty close growing up even though, according to my grandmother, Viola, Ray and Henry's mother, favored Henry and his family and treated them better, often to the exclusion of Ray and his family.  Carolyn and Anne Marie each had two sons and one daughter and Louise had two daughters, one of whom is my age.Our families were both living in newly built homes Tierra Santa, a huge tract house development that is practically a city of it's own in San Diego some 40 years later, and Kelly and I started kindergarten together - until my Dad got a job in San Jose mid-school year and we moved.  All of the cousins live within 60 miles of each other and most of the second cousins live nearby so we try to see each other.  My family has almost nothing in common with these families and these reunions are getting pretty boring for me.

They usually fall on a Saturday and I always forget to ask to get off work early, so we usually are only there for a few house. The bright spot is that Kelly has an amazing pool with a slide and waterfall that Griffin loves.  Aidan aged out of the pool this year, as did the other cousins of his generation that are teens.  Bill, Zoey Aidan, Griffin and I ended up in the family room playing Mario Kart on the Wii by the end of the event.  But, we did come home with two new bunnies!  Kelly's ten year old daughter Katherine wanted rabbits and she researched the different breeds and found a breeder from whom she purchased two lop sisters.  She thought they were dwarves, but they seem to be normal sized - as big, if not bigger than Hunny.  Katherine was tired of them and Kelly wanted them to have a good home, so Bill volunteered to take them.

And here they are!  Their names are Daisy (the one with more brown) and Bella (lop with more white.) We're not thrilled with the names, but since our rabbits have the totally LAME names Baby and Hunny, we really can't complain. I told Aidan and Griff they could name them but they haven't settled on anything - yet.  Aidan likes Maurice and Wallace, despite the fact that they are GIRLS.  Griff likes Flopsy.