Dina always held craft fairs in the Spring and at Christmas time. She was always in the same cow costume for Halloween ever since I could remember. She would sit outside of our mother’s apartment building handing out candy from a huge bowl with her every Halloween. And when we would bring the kids to visit, she would let them take so much candy. Practically the whole bowls worth. She would always call food companies and get us free samples and coupons. Dina would make Jeremy his favorite crochet stuffed animal, an elephant. This elephant was continuously put in time out too! Dina’s door was always open to Stephen’s friends and his girlfriend Kayleigh, whom she also thought of as her niece. And Joseph. Dina loved to cook for Joey’s big appetite. She loved to make him his cheeseburgers in the microwave. Dina would always text us reminding us to charge our phones and to stock up on the essentials, especially if there was bad weather in the forecast.

Our favorite place to go out to eat was the buffet. Dina would always load up a heaping plate full of shrimp, and it would never fail that she would end up coughing. That would come to be an ongoing joke we would have with her for years to come. All Dina ever wanted for Christmas was yarn and sneakers. She loved her board games too. Especially collecting any and every version of monopoly that she could find. She had tons of gizmos and gadgets, a hot dog machine, popcorn machine, cotton candy machine, slow cooker, you name it, she had it or at least planned on getting it. Dina always went to Joseph, Stephen and Jeremy’s baseball and soccer games as well as Teagan and Avery’s dance recitals. In Florida she would go to the boy’s dirt bike races. She never missed a school event. She loved wearing her long skirts and floral blouses. She loved all her nieces and nephews so much. Avery, the youngest, was definitely her little side kick. Her little mini me. Dina loved that Dawn could fit 15 people or more in her selfies. Whether it be at the dinner table or all of us stuffed in an elevator somewhere on a vacation. We would go to Chinese auctions held at her church and bagel bingo held at her homemaker’s group at the rec center. Dina loved her big bird bright colorful umbrella that she bought when we were all at sesame place in Pennsylvania. She loved seeing the Macy’s day parade in New York City and at Christmas time all the tree lightings. We could just drive around for hours looking at all the beautiful houses that were decorated. She loved our family barbecues. We had one for every and any occasion you could think of. She loved the Easter egg hunt’s, birthday parties, and ringing in the New Year together. She loved Bombino’s pizza and Gino’s pasta night as well as a nice soft serve ice cream cone from Mr. Softy when we heard his truck coming.