The Daughters of Triplets

We had a cousins party this past weekend after my aunts funeral. About 2/3rds of my 40 cousins were there.

 
It was a sad weekend as we lost the first member of the family in my dad's generation but the fact that my dad as a triplet group all made it to 80 years old is something. 

I am guessing that there aren't many groups of triplets that make it to 80 and all three reached that birthday milestone. 

My dad is an identical twin and a fraternal twin. 

My cousin in the top photo has fraternal twins and her dad is the other boy twin. My sister in the middle top of our family picture on the stairs has identical twins and she is the other male twins daughter. 
 
My aunt that died and is the fraternal twin of the triplets had twins that died. I don't know if they were fraternal or identical. 

So, twins run in the family. I think that the type of triplets my dads grouping is, was fairly rare as having identical and fraternal in the same birth can't be typical. 

While we were at the party, my aunt wanted to get family group pictures. My dad came to bring a car as my sisters truck broke down. He was in a hurry as he hadn't planned on coming to the party.

We sat on the stairs and were trying to get a good picture with him but my camera flash wasn't working. It turned out that the dial had gotten moved. So, my dad gets up to leave and my brother jokes that we should get his twin to sit and smile in the picture and nobody would know the difference. 

My uncle sat down and smiled for the camera and we all laughed and laughed at that and then we tried to get one with my dad alone with the flash as well and my uncle kept "photo bombing" the picture so we never did get a picture of just our family with the flash. 

It was so funny that we all got a good laugh out of it including my dad, uncle and his wife. As you can see, we all were laughing quite hard in the pictures.  

It was so good to see my cousins again and we always get a picture of the three of us that were about the same age and are all children of one of the different triplets. We "hung out" together. The last time we got together and took a picture was at this reunion I put on a few years back. Here is the post about that.

It turned out to be a great weekend with some ups and downs but I was grateful to be able to go and see everyone and honor my aunt. When I called my father to give condolences about his sisters death, he said, "It is the end of an era, the triplet era." It made me sad but as I shared at the beginning of this post, the fact that they were all in great health on their 80th birthday this past summer is a wonderful blessing and I am grateful that we have had them in our lives and doing well for so many years. I pray I last that long and am in as good of shape as my dad at that age.