Family Celebration Bash

Sunday we had a get together for the family.  It was sort of an all out family celebration. Lots of birthdays right around this time (including mine…another year down, wah wah.), engagements, upcoming marriages, healthy babies etc. etc. etc.  YAY us!  Also, because of my leaving for Maine for 5 weeks I wanted to make sure I saw the fam before I went.

The day consisted mostly of food because well, that’s what we do. We are a family of social eaters.  We meet we eat, it’s how we roll. Mother dear and I spent a portion of Saturday and Sunday morning cooking/baking/creating our little hearts out.  We ended up with a lovely palate of Hawaiian grilled pork medallions w/ pineapple, smokey bacon-wrapped turkey breast, cheesy potato casserole, baked beans, taco salad, homemade rolls, fruit pizza, candy bar pizza and other random fruit for snacking. Yum! This seems like a lot but really there wasn’t much for leftovers.

Unfortunately Matt and Kim couldn’t come, this was depressing for all parties.  The rest of us spent the day playing lawn games (corn hole, lawn darts, washer toss) or playing Canasta with the Grandmas.Overall, a jolly time was had by all.  I think I will definitely miss the family get togethers and outings that I’ve been able to enjoy the last 5 months.  Being so far away in New Jersey (20 hour drive or $300 plane ticket) this fall I dare say I won’t be getting home for all the holidays.  I’ll miss a lot but I suppose I’ll come back a better person after two years in the Big Apple.  If I’m lucky maybe my family will get out to visit me (but probably not).  I’ll be doing well to make it back for Matt and Kim’s wedding.  I might just have to choose between that and Christmas.

I turned the big 23 on Monday and it served to be a fairly depressing day.  Woke up and had sticky buns for breakfast (the day at least had a good start AND finish thanks to food) then I had to help my mom pick strawberries due to impending rain, visited my grandfathers at the cemetaries, came home and mowed the lawn. Not ideal but I guess it’s just any other day.  Ended the day with a homemade pizza, cooked by yours truly, which was fantastic.  Maybe my best pizza yet.  Someday I’m going to get my crust the exact same as Manny’s in Savannah or Fulton, Illinois.

On a lighter note, I’ve begun tracking my family geneology.  It’s just too interesting not too.  Apparently a variety of my relatives on both sides have a mix of random snippets about my family’s history.  I plan to spend the couple weeks sniffing out the information pretty hard to have a good base on which to begin my research.  There is too much interesting family history to not want to collect it all.  Thanks to a wonderful birthday present from my sister Jenni, a giant book “Head First HTML” I eventually hope to set it up as a mock webpage.  Where you can scroll through the family tree and click each person bringing up a mini-biography/photo of them when available.  Who knows, maybe I’m related to somebody famous.