Rockette Ship

For Enormous Family Fun, Charter a Huge Bus to the Big Apple

NEW YORK

Between the two of them, they've got 15 kids (five are hers; 10 are his -- it's the second marriage for both), the kids' 15 spouses, 47 grandchildren, and one great-grandchild. (So far.) Keeping track of all those birthdays, graduations, Communions and confirmations takes a nimble mind and a knack for numbers. (A master list helps.) Thanksgiving has to be outsourced. (A 28-pound turkey and a few smaller ones for backup.)

In 23 years of marriage, they've packed in big highs, big lows, big love. But time's whipping by, and while they can, they want to create memories. Scratch that. They want to create one major memory, one that'll last.

Which is why the Marty McNamara-Jean Tyler clan is rattling up I-95 in a chartered bus filled with 52 family members ages 5 to 84, a bemused driver, a DVD player showing movies, and enough doughnuts and coffee to keep the kids distracted and the grown-ups awake (i.e., a lot ). They leave Kensington at 7 a.m. Saturday as the sun is coming up, and head toward New York, where Radio City and the Rockettes await them.

But let's be clear about one thing:

"It's not about the Rockettes," says McNamara, the family patriarch, looking hale and rosy-cheeked at 84. "It's the bus. The travel. Broadening a child's exposure. . . . This is a once-in-a-lifetime thing. There are no second go-rounds.

"Unless," he says, slapping the shoulder of his grandson Seamus, "one of our grandsons becomes very rich and carries on the tradition."

The whole thing was Jean's idea. She thought it would be great to bring as much of the family together as possible for an adventure in bonding. Marty asked her, do you realize how many people that is? Yes, she said, what of it? In September they sent out a letter with a proposal: All of them, on a bus, from Kensington to New York and back. One day. Everybody together. Their treat. Marty suggested they all wear name tags to keep track of one another. "Absolutely no ," Jean told him.

"We all know each other," says Jean, 72.

(Still, names do slip the mind. On the bus, a pretty teen mutters, as if to herself, "That woman in the red sweater. I forget her name, but she's a relative.")

Some of the kids and grandkids couldn't make it. Some live too far away, in California and in Wisconsin. One grandson who lives in Silver Spring got sick at the last minute. And the great-grandchild, at a year and some change, is too young. But a slew of them made it: Marty, Jean, eight of his kids, two of hers, nine in-laws and 31 grandkids. And here all of them are, hanging together, having a grand old time.

This is an Irish Catholic clan, with an emphasis on the Catholic. (How else do you think I got so many kids?, Marty volunteers. His priest, he says, didn't even approve of the rhythm method.) Which means that Marty starts things out with a prayer, standing in the middle of the aisle, holding the luggage rack for support.