Gotta Love It.

In honor of my great grand parents' 65 wedding anniversary ( Anne & Rene Castagne) the family's very first family reunion was thrown on Saturday. Oh yes - they're also turning 95 & 91 this year. I was so excited to see so many cousins i havent seen since i moved back here to new york. A lot of them live SO far away (Queens, NYC). Ha - no, i am not proud of my not keeping in touch. tsk tsk. So, we get there late - about 45mins. Luckily - about 4 generations were far later than us. We walk into the ballroom and my mother's in sweats running all over the place (still) setting all the tables. With her are 2 cousins i used to (literally) play cops and robbers with. ha Andrew, Jinsil, Bahareh and i quickly threw all hands on deck.

I spent the first hour explaining to people that "no, I'm not hired help, I'm part of the family too." 90% of the time, the reply was ;"so that's why you're so pretty!". Ah, I love my family.



Jelsen occasionally took breaks from asking people around the room, "So, how are we related?" and sat down next to me to ask the people across the table, "So, how are we related?

These kids are just gorgeous. You know when you see some children and all of a sudden you're overwhelmed with this 'need' to reproduce? AJ and Ashley are stellar examples.

Cheeks. I wanna just pinch all of them. The cheeks that is. Also, the sweetness that is Margo, offered some really valuable marital advise.

Once in a while, we ran into people we actually knew. Like Jelsen's mother here.And other times, we met with people from Jelsen's past that I had come to believe were fictions of his imagination up until now. Readers,I introduce...Pascalle.

Grandma loved the photos! ha. She just stared at them and laughed & laughed.
I got my high from the grape soda. It did every bit what it claimed it would. It "hit the spot". Mmm, sugarrrr.

And now, it's time for a slideshow:
Which lasted about 1h30mins. The fashion flashback was priceless and while others cheered when they saw someone who looked fly, I cheered every time someone I knew were in a picture. I cheered about 3 times.

Dance-Off:As proved at the wedding: Our family knows how to throw down.
People finally stopped asking me if I was the help and started embracing me in that "You are married to Andrew - how wonderful"-sort of way.

And Jelsen continued the hunt for relatives he could embrace.

Jelsen got to fill out his pad and pose with his gorgeous cousins. As usual, he forgot to wear his contacts under his glasses and thought the camera was somewhere totally different than everyone else. Andrew's cheeks actually belong in that 9th picture (go on, scroll up and count - you know you want to).

2am - we all start filing out. I was elated that i got to see a lot of family that still recognized me without braces, snot crust, and ashy kneecaps. The night was indeed a success. So many smiles, so many 'oh my god! that's YOU?!', so many great stories. Since, The Innocents came through full-force at the setting up of the night - we all made sure we bolted before an aunt (ANY aunt) could assign dishwashing duties our way. We bummed a ride with my big cousin Anthony and his wife Margo back to Brooklyn.

I'm so proud to be part of this family, and I'm not just saying that because half of the reunion are gonna read this post. I actually cried several times by the love I witnessed and felt. I even overheard the photographer say; "Look, the caterer is crying...creeeepy".

til next
Jelsen & Bahareh