25

Here I sit, on the eve of my 25th birthday, and my instinct was to write something. I love that.

We spent today at the Bettis Family Reunion. This is my family on my father's side and let me tell you, there are a TON of Bettis' and Bettis "spin-offs" if you will. I am not really good at all at estimating numbers...so I'm not going to be able to express just how many people attended the reunion today...but trust me when I say that a lot means...a lot! My papa had 11 brothers and sisters, or something like that. Imagine that each of them had 2-3 children of their own, and so on, and you get a slew of relatives that, admittedly, probably cannot even name each other!

That's right. It is almost shameful to say that I did not know the names of several of my relatives today. I of course know my great aunts and great uncle (we have lost too many. RIP papa), and I recognize a cousin or two of my dad's and their kids. I'm even friends with a few on Facebook. But there are just so many kids now. I think we decided a good, solid 4 generations were in attendance today, but that we may be calculating wrong and there could very well be a baby or two "representing" a 5th. It is wonderful.

Perhaps the only downside is that we gathered on June 26th! In Georgia! AHHHH! I can't even begin to express just how ridiculously hot it was today. I never checked officially, but I know that the heat index had to have been rounding 100 degrees or so. I was sweating so much that my sweat was sweating. I soaked through part of my shirt, even. Stay classy, San Diego. Thank goodness I made the last minute decision this morning not to even bother with washing my hair. It would have been completely irrelevant come the end of the afternoon.

Enough of that talk, though I'm sure it's award-winning reading when it comes to my sweat.

One of my favorite parts of the yearly reunions is flipping through old photo albums from previous reunions. Today, I saw a photo of myself from two years ago when I came just after our wedding. I was turning 23 at that reunion, and was probably a good 12-15 pounds heavier. !!! That's right. Photographic proof that I've kicked butt since then. Call it the early marriage softness, or just plain laziness, but whatever it is I have destroyed it and can finally be happy about my near-future beach vacation.

I thoroughly enjoyed seeing photos of the 12 brothers/sisters mentioned above from back in the DAY. My aunt and I joked about how no one ever smiled in those pictures. You know what ones I mean. Every single person has a super sour puss smile on their faces with absolutely no expression whatsover behind their eyes. It's quite creepy. We wondered, "Did the photographers ask them not to smile? Or were they just that miserable?" That of course segued into..."They probably are, if it's June and they're at a reunion!"

This year's reunion was especially great because my not-so-baby-anymore baby cousin Megan got to come. She lives in Colorado and this was her first reunion ever. I'm sure it was overwhelming for her, as it somewhat still is for me, but I think she enjoyed seeing where she comes from. I know I do. I feel honored to be a part of this very large, very silly, very sweaty family. I cannot wait to see the pictures taken today...hopefully with the aid of Facebook I won't have to wait until next year's gathering!



PS: I recognize it's been ages since I last wrote. I have every intention of being more active in this blog. It's the current wave, it seems, for people to share their daily events and musings. Sometimes mine can be interesting, so why not jump on the bandwagon?