it seems like the only time im blogging lately is when I have some photos to show off... anyway, i wanted to journal this trip better, but never got around to it. I will give a quick summary.

We went to Ft Lauderdale for a couple of days. We had a great time, beautiful weather - just being tourists, eating in restaurants, catching a couple movies, and spending time together. We are celebrating 14 years of marriage.

We got a last minute internet package deal which included air, hotel, and car rental. So the expense wasnt that much...

a nice surprize when we picked up our car was that we were given a brand new hybrid Toyota Prius... it only had a thousand miles on it so far... and i absolutely loved driving it. It was so quiet and smooth. It had adequate power when you needed it, or on the highway, and this cool display that showed you when the electric motor was on, or when it was taking energy from your momentum and putting electricity back into the batteries. Really some very cool technology. We drove 260 miles I think, and it only cost us $22 - our average was somewhere around 45mpg... WOW.

Ft Lauderdale was nice... a very wealthy resort type place on the coast... and then more ghetto as you move inland. its amazing to me how much money is spent on boats of all different sorts, and expensive million dollar houses and these huge cruise lines. How much money is spent on excess and luxury. And yet i understand the attraction to it as well.

I've posted some pictures from my family reunion. click on the slideshow to go to the album. I had my camera out for the group picture, and then went around and just took some random shots... so I know I didnt even get a good representation of everyone that was there, sorry I got some people lots, and totally missed some people (thats how random goes I guess)

Ive got a huge family on my dads side, He was one of 14, and so I have 75 cousins just on that side. in my album you can see pictures of 20some of them... obviously just a small portion of the whole family.

It was nice to be together, even as we age, and our own families start their own traditions, and reunions, its still nice to know how we share something in common. Our blood, and our heritage. And its surprising how so much of our upbringing has been formational in our own lives. You can see a thread running through the family, even though it is morphed into something new because of spouses (who don't always get it :)

Anyway, its lots of fun. Its also fun to see after a long time apart, how people resemble each other... like Joe, who reminds me of my dad... and Fannie, who really resembles her mom (my grandma who we all called mummy.)

I could describe these people typically as loud, fun, goofy, but in a mature mischievous way. I enjoyed talking to my uncles about rook, and hearing Amos remember how he played with my dad so much when they were first married. He told how they played so much together that they could read each others hands, by finger signals and winks - basically cheating, and no one could beat them (naturally.) I would love to get together and play with all these old timers. I hope i get invited some time (hint hint)

In many ways, I am much younger than most of the cousins... I am the third youngest of 75, and Julie is 2nd youngest... So I don't have the tight relationships that some of the others have that spent a lot of time together as teenagers and stuff.

I know its hard to take time to spend together, and the holidays are so busy -BUT- we really should spend more than two hrs once a year.