the height difference/name calling around here:

here's another idea of how much taller my brother is than me:

(oh, and he just LURVES to get his picture taken, can't you tell!?)

(oh, and I just do ;-)...can't you tell!?)

GRANDPA 'FLIP'

my maiden name is Benton

but not really.

what?

well, when my family came 'over here' they were Zbinden's.

good 'ol Swiss name.

but it was the depression and the work/food lines went in alphabetical order and so 'Z' was a bummer letter to have.

my great grandfather's nickname was Zip

so he just legally changed his name to Zip Benton (because when you say it together it sounds very close to Zbinden and 'B' was much better!)

THEN, my grandfather (his son) had a wooden toy making company that was doing awesome until Playschool decided to start mass producing plastic toys.

The company went bankrupt and so did my grandpa.

That was at a time in history when it was still legal to change your name if you went bankrupt so back to Zbinden it was, a generation later.

But by this time my grandpa had already had four children with the name of Benton.

My dad and his three siblings.

(There are six siblings total)

phew!

(you asked ;-)

Two of the sisters have gone back to Zbinden, just because,

one of the sisters and one of the brothers were born Zbinden's (after the name change) so that left the two oldest brothers and neither of them have changed their name, they are still Benton.

I have a TOTAL of three cousins.

One has the last name of her father,

the other two are Bentons and my brother and I were/are Bentons.

Both the Zbinden name and the Benton name will be carried on because there are two boy cousins with the Benton name and one uncle with the Zbinden name

(not married yet, he's about 12 years younger than me ;-)

so pending he has children, the Zbinden name will live.

ALL that for this.

My grandfather (my dad's dad...the one who changed his name back to Zbinden) has called my dad 'FLIP' most of his life, his name is Philip

but it's just cool because his grandfather's nick name was 'ZIP'

Zip

Flip

Zbinden

Benton

I don't know, if you were us, really, it would all make sense.

My dad is not a "Papa" or "Papaw" or "Opa" or "Pop" or etc...

They don't fit.

We wanted to call the Grandpa's each something different but plain 'ol Grandpa had already been claimed by Jake's side so we had to do something and Grandpa Flip just rolls off the tongue, doesn't it?

Speaking of Grandpa Flip.

It's almost time to say good bye -

not looking forward to that.