Welcome to the Family

Yesterday was a rather historic day for me. Not in the "I did something grand sense" but in the milestone of life sense.

Let me set the stage a little bit here: My father is one of EIGHT kids (yes, you read that correctly). My father was kid number six. He has five brothers and two sisters. The seventh child (brother number 5: John) had his sixtieth birthday yesterday. So, my aunt organized a family get together.

Since I just moved to Florida a month ago, I never got to attend these mini-family reunions. I was always either in school or too far away to get there. Now that I'm in Florida with all the rest of the family.. I can go. We're not a totally disfunctional family and seem to all get along (in mild doses) for good lengths of time. That's not to say we don't have our Springer moments because we absolutely do (like any other family)... any family who says they don't is either lying or not big enough to create drama.

For anyone living under a rock for the last week I'm sure you were aware that Hurricane Dennis has been hovering off the west coast of Florida for the good part of the week (well, shit, there's another one!) Most of the morning of the party was spent glued to the weather channel and the NOAA website (I LOVE the NOAA website). I've become something of a Weather Channel junkie after living with my weather obsessed roomie in Bradenton during my Florida externship. It also helped that she worked for ABC. So, with that in mind and Dennis veering firmly to the west of us we headed out to Gainesville for my uncle's party.

As soon as G and I walked in the door it was HELLO FAMILY!! At least thirty relatives were in attendance (and this is only a SMALL fraction of the family). It is also the first time G has braved any family affair of mine involving more than just my immediate parentals. Only half of my aunts and uncles were there and it was still mildly overwhelming for him. He took everything in stride and tried to keep all the names straight. There were cousins coming out of the woodwork (including some I hadn't seen since they were seven or eight and now they're in their mid-20s). We socialize, ate, played softball, played with the dogs (there were three there), and socialized some more. The cousins around my age invited us diving on the east coast of Florida in August and I believe we're going to take them up on the offer. I think it'll be great for us to get out and do something, meet some people, and have fun!! (after my boards are over of course)

We were a little worried driving home as we were going to be driving into the storm. However, we only went through two fairly substantial bands of rain. Not too eventful, which is just how you want it when you're braving the east side of a hurricane. (the notoriously bad side to be on if you're not up on your hurricane trivia)

Regardless we had a wonderful time at the birthday party and we're definitely going to have to be at more family events in the future. It was great to finally meet all my cousin's kids !

And, for the record, G was universally loved. :) YAY! One aunt even commented on his cuteness (of course I had to agree with her)