4/27/08 The e-Cousin Champagne Tradition

Here's another cool e-Cousin tradition. It was actually born the same year as the e-Cousin Spa Day event. Mary Louise's daughter, Christi (technically, a first cousin once removed from all the e-cousins except ML) married Matt that year and the e-cousins decided to celebrate. What gift could we give. And we came up with the idea that each of us would bring a champagne glass. We would toast Christi and Matt and then give them all the champagne glasses. They would end up with a set of 8 glasses, but no two would be alike. It's actually pretty cool because it's beautiful set of glasses and goes with any china/crystal patterns and every decorating taste (country, modern, etc.), and your guests can always figure out which glass is theirs.

So we did it for Christi and Matt in 2001 and Katy and Bing in 2007. Since Rebecca and Albert got married in October, it was perfect to do their champagne glasses at the next family reunion, which happened to be at their house. :-) Then Katy figured out that we had never done it for Nancy and Dale. Even though they got married after Christi and Matt, we somehow missed them. So we decided to "get caught up" by giving them champagne glasses, too. You can only imagine the nightmare of the emails. There was one set of emails going to ALL e-cousins about the reunion and regular e-cousin chatter. There was one set going to everyone except Rebecca about Rebecca's glasses and another one going to everyone except Nancy about her glasses. Oh my. But somehow, we pulled it off. :-)

Here's Katy filling the glasses with bubbly so we can break them in and toast Rebecca and Albert. All the glasses on the left of the sunflowers were for R&A. Notice that there are more reds on that side since Rebecca seems to have an affinity for things red. (And isn't it appropriate that Katy's face be hidden by sunflowers now that she lives in The Sunflower State?) All the glasses on the right are for Nancy and Dale.

Because ML couldn't be there, Katy brought glasses for her. Apparently there was even side emails going on between the two of them as Katy went glass shopping and then sent photos to ML to see what she wanted to give. And we even thought to bring an extra one for Rebecca to give to Nancy and Dale even though she didn't know about it. That was quite the trick! But we "thunk" right. Rebecca was sooo excited and relieved that we had a glass ready for her because she didn't want to miss out on that. Dang we're good! What an amazing group of women to be a part of!

Oooops!

I just found photos from 4/23/08 that I didn't post, so they're posted now. Scroll down a few postings and check out my last day on Long Island.

There are a few more family reunion photos to go, but I'm at the Manchester airport (free wireless internet--yea!) and I see my bag going around the baggage claim. I'm going to get my suitcase and head home (4 hour drive) and will finish the family reunion blog entries another day.

4/27/08 Sunday Brunch

I love the Sunday Brunch of Family Reunion weekends because it's so relaxed and so fun and such a celebration of family, fun, and life. But I hate that it signals that another reunion is coming to an end. :-( This year's was no exception. But it was nice that everybody stayed for most of the day. There were no early departures (Nikki and Vernon before sunrise or Deborah and Daughter on the 9am flight). So the entire cast spent the entire morning and even part of the afternoon together before the inevitable call of work and obligations on Monday morning called us back to our regular lives.

Albert cooked up some of the fish that "the boys" caught on their escapade while the e-cousins were at their spa day. It was my first time to eat "dolphin" (the fish not the mammal) or barracuda. They were both delicious but is that the fish or is that the magic of Albert's cooking? We also enjoyed Rebecca's yummy quiche, coffee cake, and cheese grits. How can she do all that cooking on top of the amazing spread she put out on Friday night?! I love being related to talented cooks. I'll be picking out all the finest restaurants when reunion is in Maine in 2009. ;-)