FAMILY TIME

Yesterday I went to my cousins’ house blessing in Long Beach. It was a whole day affair of, what else, eating, catching up and looking forward. I got to see my nieces and nephews who, every single time I see them, I want to cry because they’re getting so big. I got to spend some time with my niece, Joey, who’s a freshman at UCSB. I was her mom’s flower girl FOR SOBBING OUT LOUD! And now she’s 18, and in college. Just look at her, with her blonde hair and green eyes. You’d never know she was half-filipina. Her younger sister, Tyler, either. Their dad’s genes are way dominant, it’s so crazy!
All I looked forward to on Friday was meeting up with my cousins Jeyel, PJ, and Ruel to hang out with our cousin, Melissa, who flew in last week from Dayton, OH to attend a conference. She was leaving Saturday afternoon so we got to spend a few hours with her. I haven’t seen this girl in a year, yet, between family reunions, the occasional wedding, AIM chats or phone calls, we still manage to stay connected with a slew of old and new inside jokes to keep us bound.
We didn’t get to shop around The Block too much (except for us buying each other our belated birthday presents. Thanks for the earrings, Mel!),nor were we able to sit in a bar or coffee shop to talk for very long, but we did have the loooooong drive from the OC to her hotel by LAX and, well, that was enough for us until July.
I can never get enough of spending time with these cousins of mine. There's always something to talk about, always something to to laugh about, always something to be concerned about. I appreciate it so much. Maybe living so far apart keeps us from getting sick of each other. But most times I wish we lived 10 minutes away from one another, just in case...