Sunday, July 09, 2006

Family Reunion...

...for my mother's mother's side, up in Rome, NY. I wasn't ever particularly close to this side, as my maternal grandmother passed away when I was young. It's curious to drive upstate to a big field to come together with a lot of people I wouldn't otherwise know, and be related. It felt neat to be connected to something I didn't feel very connected to, if that makes sense. This was a meeting of the Wheelers and the Howes. My mom's mom was named Jeanne Howe. The name Howe is apparently from Northern England (hilly country I guess) and comes from the Norman (whatever that language would be) word for hill. I guess the Normans came along and named all the different hill dwellers (I guess I do come from a long line of hillbillies) "How". I think the "e" on the end came later. I read that in an email that someone had up at the reunion.

It was fun to hang out...I hadn't even seen Liz et al. since Mother's Day. Alev has grown, and is missing her two front teeth, and Zach is getting bigger and bigger, and is still shy. We got to hang out with my cousin Adam and his girlfriend Jacquie, which I had been looking forward to.

Also, my mom finally got to meet Andrea's mom, who came down from Buffalo just to do that, which was nice of her. They hit it off right away (after their teary first hug, awwwwwwwww.)


The family tree...I'm up on the left.


That's me and Liz on the left...


Yellow postit on the bottom is my mother's aunt's cousin. View large, and the two names highlighted in yellow on the lower left came over on the Mayflower. (read this article...) Red stars are Revolutionary War. Pretty cool.


Alev and Zachadoodledooo.


Alev bein' cute...


Jacquie looking up at Adam...


Adam lookin' all studly.


Alev


Alev and Andrea


Zachy


My mom and her aunt Ellen (my mom's middle name before she got married was Ellen)


My aunt Connie and her boyfriend Michael


Alev took this picture of me...


Alev took this one too...


Liz, Oz, Alev, Zach, Ellen and her husband...


My mom's aunt's cousin, named Connie (like my aunt). There is definitely resemblance.


Mom, Connie, Ellen and her husband and son...


Liz and Zach and Adam being a goofball...


Happy Zach


Whole gang...


Andrea looking at her mom...


Andrea picking her nose...


Andrea in our hotel room...


Andrea's mom and my mom right after they just met (I missed the teary hug shot, darn)


Zach on the swings...


Alev took this pic of me holding up a smiley face thing that Liz got for her at the carnival


Meeting of the moms...

3 Comments:

Changgull said...

Aleve is lovely!
And the girl who's picking her nose is also :)

11:04 PM  
Ian said...

Thanks Chang! I'll pass along the compliments, especially to nose-picker.

IB

10:03 AM  
bronwen said...

wow. i love these photos. first of all, i have never met your mom and it's cool to see what she looks like (plus a picture of your dad from another entry - never saw him either). and andrea's mom- how cool! she looks a lot like her daughter except that she doesn't. you guys will have pretty children...

4:06 PM  

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