backtracking a bit...

Everytime that I thought about starting this blog I couldn't decide how it was going to go, I couldn't decide if I wanted it to be chronological or just lots of random stories. The way that I started it has been more chronological but clearly I skipped many years. So I think I will just fill in some with some facts and information in between big posts. We will see how that works.

So I never mentioned that my Dad was an identical twin. He and his twin brother Don were very close. Uncle Don is the father of my cousin's in the group picture that I posted before. My dad and his brother were a lot like and yet different in so many ways. They both had great senses of humor and they were both so completely commited to their family. They loved their parents dearly and were very good sons. As you can imagine when they lost both of their parents so close together it was very hard for them. It was a very sad time in the Sabella family. There were arguments over who got to keep what, emotions ran high and sometimes it wasn't pretty. I wouldn't want to go back to that time in our lives, it was the beginning of so many sad things to come.

My Mom's Family-
Because my dad and his family were so very close and so steeped in their culture and my mom's family wasn't we didn't spend much time with my mom's family at all when I was a kid. It's unfortunate, and when I was younger it didn't bother me. I was so in love with my dad's side that I didn't feel like I was missing out on anything. My mom's parents were divorced when she was young and both her parents had remarried a couple times. My Grandma Bernice (not pronounced Ber-neece but Bur-nus, seriously.. oh and her nickname? Bunny. For reals.) and my Grandpa Earl both lived in a Yucaipa when I was growing up and they were both very sweet people, I don't have many memories of them but the ones that I do have are all good. My mom has a sister her name is Jean, her husband's name? Oh that would be Gene. Yep not even kidding. Oh wait... so my Aunt Jean married my Uncle Gene and when they were dating they decided to set their parents up. So... one day my Grandma Bernice married her daughter's father in law (are you following?) and his name... well they called him Pa Jay. Again, not kidding. So now my Grandma is married and her daughter and son in law are also step brother and sister! So maybe this is why it didn't bother me when I found out that my other grandparents were cousin's... we all like to keep it in the family.
My mom's family is from the mid west, and can be traced back to the 1700's, I know this because I have recently done it. I joined ancestry.com to find out more about my dad's family (of course) but because they were all immigrants there really isn't much to find out through U.S. records. But on the other side (the White family, that was their last name not just their race) they can be traced back to the earliest settlers. I have been amazed at all the info I found out about them. Apparantely they were a very affluent family back in the day and owned hundreds of acres of land and had dozens of kids.
Not knowing my mom's family better is one of my biggest regrets. I am sad that it wasn't a priority of my mom's that we spend more time with them, I am sure I would have learned a lot from Bernice, she seemed like a really cool lady.