The Silva Children...and their stories:

Gustavo "Gus" Silva was Number 1

Viewer Discretion Advised!!...

Arturo "Arthur" aka Tudi...Silva was Number 2 (my daddy)

As you can tell...they got along great.

Gus tells a certain story like this:

"Let me tell you at least one story that involved your dad, me and grandpa Silva. We used to live in Orlando, Florida back in 1965 and it was really cool because we used to run to the back yard to watch the Mercury rockets as they took off from Cape Canaveral. Your dad, who was 2 years old and I, 4 years old used to play outside all the time and we sometimes accidently threw our toys up on the house roof.  Every weekend our family, dad, mom, myself (Gus), your dad (Arthur), Pearl and Pepe (the baby), would take naps in the afternoon.  One afternoon I decided that there were too many toys on the roof and I was going to retrieve them.

 I woke up Arthur and told him to follow me outside while the rest of the family slept.  There was near the front door a trestle that went from the ground to the roof and I decided that Arthur and I would climb up the trestle and retrieve our toys, climb down, before anyone would wake up and no one would be the wiser. So I helped my 2 year old brother up the roof and we walked around throwing down the toys into the back yard.

 When we were finished I gently helped Arthur down the trestle before I started climbing down. I was so proud that we had accomplished this task and that we had all our toys back. I started climbing down and half way I saw a pair of eyes looking at me thru the slats in the trestle. I knew it was my father who had been awakened by our walking on the roof.  As I saw his eyes I thought that maybe I should climb back up and live the rest of my live on the roof instead of dying at such a young age.  I decided to climb down to meet my death at the hands of my father. After the lecture of putting my brothers’ life at risk I was given a punishment that prevented me from sitting down for what seemed a month.

 I tried explaining my precautions of making sure that my brother was always near me and that I was aware of the risk but that the benefits outweighed the danger. This adventure between Arthur and I was the first of many that I got him involved in. To me life has always been an adventure and a wonderful thing to experience but it is always better if you do it with someone you love and care about."

Arthur remembers another story like this:

On one occasion, me and Gus got out of school and were waiting for the bus to take us back to the American base where our family lived. We were currently living in England since dad was in the Air Force and our school was a ways away from our home. Gus said he knew the way and promised that he would take the right way home and persuaded me to walk home with him and skip riding the bus. A few hours later, as our parents were worrying back home and trying to find us...we were still walking aimlessly through the English countryside. A very nice barber man with a thick English accent saw these two little Mexican boys on the side of the road out in the middle of nowhere as he was driving. He suspected we might be from the nearby American Air Base. He pulled the car over and asked us if we were lost. We were. Somehow he helped us find our way back home and I couldn't help but remember Gus had persuaded me to do it when we got in trouble from Dad that night.

...House in England

However, Grandpa Silva remembers another story like this:

"One day I realized it was too quiet in the house and went outside to look for Arthur and Gus. As I got to the backyard I walked out just in time to see Arthur and Gus fighting over which toy truck was whose. As I got closer to break up the argument, Arthur quickly got on top of the fence post and pulled his pants down...his retort came out like this, "Gus, if you don't give me that truck, i'm going to pee on you!..." I think he meant it."

Now look at their families...

Gus and his family (wife Rosa)

Arthur and his family (wife Becky)

Then Number 3...Pearl Silva joined the family!

 Pearl watching Saturday morning cartoons

But this trio didn't stay together too long...

Soon, Jose "Pepe" Silva was born. Number 4.

Arthur, Pepe and Pearl

 Arthur, Pepe (crying), Gus and Pearl

Quite the little character...

...His compadre was born not long after...

 Robert "Bobby" Silva came along...Number 5.

 Watching Saturday morning cartoons once again...:)

Gus, Jose, Sara, Arthur (top)

Bobby, Pearl and Pepe (bottom)

This family is growing fast...we aren't done though.

 Baby Maribel "Mari" Silva...the life of the party...welcome to the family.
Number 6.

Pinata at Gma Bojorque'z home

Number 7...David Silva.

And last but not least...Number 8. Beckee Silva...

All the girls :)

This family is most definately not complete yet however...

Pearl and her family

Pepe and his family (wife Bonnie)

Bobby and his family (wife Heidi)

Mari and her family

 Mari and Chazz!

Chazzer is currently serving a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in Farmington, New Mexico. We love you Chazzer!!

David now and his family (wife MeMe)

Beckee and her family (husband Joe)

And there's still the great grandkids...:)

A few extra stories collected from various siblings and grandpa:

Mary had a fit that she couldn't name her dog what she wanted when the family finally got one. She wanted to name it Frumpet. Everyone else named it Gookie.

Pearl burned her fingers one time getting ready for a date because of her curling iron...she literally had to cut the skin between each finger because they burned together. She ruined her dress in the process.

Arthur and Gus once took their plastic soldiers and their farm animal plastic pigs and melted the pig heads onto the soldiers and played with them that way.

One time, Arthur got mad and pushed Pepe, in which he lost his balance and fell into a keroscene lamp. Pretty sure he broke his head open from that one.

There were on several occasions, when we lived in El Paso, that we kids would take Grandpa's car when we knew he was asleep and would push it to the end of the street late at night and we would then all pile in and drive to Taco Cabana to eat food. We always thought we were so smart.

(Emily: "Grandpa told me this story himself when I was last in El Paso as we were passing this sign...he said he knew all along. He thought it funny to let them pretend they were getting away with something.")

The kids used to drive grandma nuts because they would always take these little rubber bands and shoot them at people. They were actually really good at aiming and you always knew what they were up to and to be careful because you would randomly here someone in the house go, "Ouch!...Ouch!" Grandma as she was vacuuming would pick up the rubber bands in the vacuum belt and would get so mad.

I was reading downstairs one night and heard a whole bunch of stomping from upstairs. I couldn't figure out what was going on so I decided to investigate. I got upstairs and realized the stomping was coming from Arthur's room. As I walked in, there was a fire on the floor and Arthur was trying to put it out by stomping on it...with his bare feet. (Grandpa told this while laughing) :)

One day mom was having a hard day. Dad was gone, and she was so busy. Pepe was super bored and took the pea soup that mom had made for us kids for lunch that day and decided to poor it into every empty bowl, cup, and saucer we had. He then put them all back (filled with pea soup) back into the cupboards. Grandma cried when she saw it.

I remember sitting in church and trying to pay attention. We were living in Hawaii during this time. The church we were in didn't have any windows and there were tons of mosquitoes. All I can remember from the sacrament meeting that day is the sound of all the little Silva kids slamming their hymn books open and shut as they caught mosquitoes in them. We were probably the loudest ones there.

Arthur during fast Sunday was complaining that he was starving one day. Dad told him no food until we got home from church that day. He kept complaining and so during church as dad looked over he noticed Arthur sneaking saltine crackers from his pocket. He tried SO hard to chew softly. He ended up throwing it all up later...

Also during church, Arthur was super bored. He was playing with this toothpick and wasn't listening so dad took it away and put it in his pocket. A few minutes later, dad noticed that Arthur was playing with another toothpick. He again took that one away. A few minutes later, the exact same thing happened! Finally dad noticed that Arthur had tied a string to the same toothpick and was pulling it from dad's pocket slowly.

The kids used to play the "Pobre Gatito" game altogether, which was kind of like Monkey in the Middle. Whoever was it, was the cat and would go around and try to get the players to laugh or crack a smile by meowing or cuddling up to them. Grandma always played the game so well with a genuine conern for the kitty. Oh Pobre Gatito! She always had such a straight face.

So the family was moving back to El Paso, and when they arrived we went straight to our grandparents home (Sara’s Parents).  They couldn’t hear them because their courtyard was surrounded by a tall blue fence. They made Mari climb the fence to go tell them that they had arrived and when Grandma opened the door, her long gray hair was down and she didn’t have her teeth in, so of course it scared Mari to pieces because she thought it was La Llorona.

Grandpa sometimes would not pay attention in church because he would write on his thumbs, with little faces on them and would play with the kids…however Grandpa would threaten to make Arthur stand up in church if he didn’t pay attention in church.

Grandma would go roller skating with Mari and her friends sometimes and she would even roller skate backwards…she was the COOL Mom.

When Maribel was little, she got a hold of Grandpa's sharp razor after he had left to work and decided to try it. Grandma found her dripping blood and shaving cream.