We Are Family

It's good to belong. It's healthy to be part of something bigger than yourself and even your immediate kin (you know, the ones who live under your roof or did at one time). And when you leave that family, your father and mother and cling to your spouse, and start your own little fam...before you know it they are off, leaving and cleaving and the group keeps growing.

The Extended Henning Family

 

In all our silliness!

The Cousins Reunion, as we call it in the Henning family is a fairly new gathering. Our first reunion, here at "the farm" was originally planned to be an 80th birthday party for the patriarch of the Henning clan, my father-in-law, Bill Henning. Sadly, he passed away in April of 2001. Still, we went ahead with a gather on his birth date in August of 2001 and the Cousins reunion was born. So our reunion is 12 years old! Gosh, Bill would have been 92 this year. I'm sure he's delighted to have inspired this special family time, just wish he could have been part of it.

 

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The Bruce Clan

 

The Bruce clan is larger because we have an extra generation, and that generation were many, and they had bunches of kids, who had bunches of kids. (This is my dad's family, which is nothing, numbers-wise, compared to my mom's. Between the two, I have over 50 first cousins -- 52 on a quick count, which doesn't include cousins-in-law.) 

 

The only cross-overs between pix are Tom, me, two of our boys, and one of their our girls. Wait, not me, I was taking the picture.

 

We are family. And we do it big. (But I made the pictures too big and cut people off...here's a redo.)