Family Ties

Hello again, readers! If you’re still reading this, then I can safely assume I haven’t yet bored you to death. Hopefully, that will remain a fact (knock on wood). So now we move on to my family ties, the great bonding tree that is responsible for my very existence; the ever-branching complexity of my ancestors’ genealogy towards this exact point in time, the very… Well, you get the point.
Most of you probably already know about my immediate family. My mom’s name is Deana Chavanne O’Hara and my dad’s name is Jeffrey Charles O’Hara. I also have a younger brother (and don’t even pretend you’ve never heard of him) named Dillon. And of course, what would a common household be without a few pleasurable pets? We’ve got a rabbit, two frogs, a buck-load of fish, and two dogs. Our first dog was a black cocker spaniel named Trapper. Our second dog is collie named Sheba. Trapper passed away a couple years ago, and we got another border collie named Rocky a while later.
So anyway, let’s start with my dad’s side. My father’s parents were Arnold and Alice O’Hara, my grandparents. Arnold and Alice have three kids: Pat, Kevin, and Jeff (my own dad). Pat married and had four children named Janice, Melissa, Danielle and Shannon. Shannon enlisted in the Iraq war for awhile, but he’s back now, and he’s married to Anna, who is now my fifth cousin… I guess.
I wasn’t able to spend much time with my cousins, but I did get to spend time with my grandparents. Every once in awhile, our family would go out to Tampa Bay, Florida, to meet my grandparents and spend a week or so with them. We’ve caught and lost many-a large fish in that bay. Unfortunately, my grandpa recently died of cancer. The funeral there was one of few times I got to see the whole family together.
Well, sorry about the downer. Moving on to my mother’s side. Her parents were Bill and Patricia Chavanne (Yay! We’re German!). My mom is the only child of the two, although she had some step-siblings, none of which I recall meeting. Grandma Pat also has a sister named Ethel who is married to Ron. They have three children; Cary, Patti, and Craig. Patti has three kids of her own, the only cousins I’ve really known in the family. Their names are Jocelyn, Annaliese, and Tim. Craig has three (Jacob, Jordan and Jenna) and Cary has two, Cody and Cory.
Grandpa Chavanne recently moved down to Oklahoma, so we get to see him in church every now and then. The rest of the family lives up north, though, so I don’t get much opportunity to see them. Grandma Pat visits every now and then, and we spend time together. As a matter of fact, the time we visited her in New York was the first time Dillon and I learned how to fish. She had a pond out on her property where we tried to catch catfish. I also had fun chasing one of her cats, the most cowardly cat I think I’ve ever met. He’s still alive if I remember correctly, but he seems to hate me for some strange reason…
So, that’s my family, branches and all. They haven’t had a hugely significant effect on my life, since I don’t see them often, but they’re still special to me, and I love them all. So now you know a little more about me and the twisted, meaninglessly complex branches that formed my very being… How poetic…