The Family Reunion.

You ever get completely lost, beyond help, here in Salt Lake? Not me, I can always tell which way I have to head to get home, even if I am unable to find my original destination. No matter where you are in the valley, you can always see the mountains and figure out where you are in the valley. Directions here are easy, if I have a good address I don't even need directions. 4625 South 300 West can only be in one place. You see 4753 So, you have to head north, you see 4434 So you head south. Our coordinate system makes directions easy, I worked in pizza delivery for a decade and the drivers rarely couldn't find an address. Finding the place we had the family reunion in Needham was a completely different experience. We got lost. Bad. Passed within a block of the place several times and still didn't find it. "Get off Rt 128 at the first Needham Exit, turn right. Follow that road until you see the Exxon station, right across from the small Dunkin' Donuts. Turn left, you should be on Hollyoak Road. Follow that past the A & P, until you get to the big yellow house on the hill..." Yeah. They finally had to set off flares so we could find the place. They tried to light a tree on fire for us, but it was raining too hard. But we made it, an hour after it started.

The reunion itself was great. I haven't seen a lot of these people for over 2 decades and I have to admit I had a hard time keeping track of who fit where in the family tree. There were a couple of people I recognized right off, my dad's cousin who is my age was one. I recognized her across the room and we had a great talk, going over all the old times, watching the kids running around playing and remembering when that was us. And the food. Ohhhhh, the food. From the picture you can see it was quite a spread. At least 4 different types of lasagne, several other pasta dished, ribs, meatballs, sausages and salads. Mmmmm. And other than the Papa Gino's pizza at the front of the table, it was all homemade. Oh, and desserts. Tons of them. I missed out on the canoli, they were gone by the time I made it there, but there was still a lot of awesome homemade desserts. We were there for about 5 hours, eating, talking, laughing. One of the younger parents organized a kids talent show for us, where the little ones came up and sang a song. The show ended in the entire group singing "Happy Birthday" to my great aunt, who turned 100 earlier this month. Overall it was an awesome evening, I'm going to have to make it back there more often than every 20 years. I did miss the big day for my great aunt; on her birthday she was invited to watch a Red Socks game from the owners box. She said that she had never been that close to the game before, she felt like she could just reach out and touch the players. They also invited her out on the mound to have a picture taken with the team mascot. Yeah, that would have been awesome.