I know family reunions aren’t new, people everywhere get together with their relatives for food, fun and just to socialize. I never really had any family reunions in my family until a few years ago when one of my aunts decided that we should start having them. She hosted the first one and it turned out well. After that one of my uncles on the other side of the family thought it was a great idea and he decided that we should do that too - so now my mom‘s side of the family and my dad‘s side of the family set the stage for the family reunions. I didn‘t get to go to the one on my father‘s side of the family because I couldn’t‘ take off work, but after the reunion I heard rumors that the family had decided that the next reunion was going to be in Vegas. My family is the only one that lives in Vegas so it would be up to us to plan it. I had strong objections to it because I didn‘t want to get stuck doing everything. To make things worse, both sides of the family decided they wanted the next reunion to be in Vegas. I protested, but was told that we would have a committee formed by each family‘s oldest son or daughter to help out. I thought I could live with that, so the reunion was set for Vegas July 9^th - 11^th 2010.

I’m not a great planner, I’m more of a procrastinator than anything else. The thing I got going for me is that I believe everything, no matter how bad it seems always turns out well in the end. It seems to happen all the time, but the planning for the reunion was not going so well. If there was a committee set up, I never heard from the members. One of my cousin’s was supposed to have everyone send him recipes so we could put together a family recipe book but I think he only got two and one was my Spam and Hevuoes recipe, so the redipe book was never made. My uncles were supposed to send me pictures of the previous reunion so I could set up a slideshow, but I never got the pictures so thee would be no slide show

The date for the family reunion was getting closer and I felt like I was on a speeding train heading for a major crash. It was going to be a disaster and it was going to have my name all over it - I had a bad feeling about it. I need another year to complete planning it, but I didn’t have that time. I had two days to pull it all together and it still seemed like there was so much to do. Family has already started to arrive and I wasn’t even sure if we were going to have the original welcome dinner where we would pass out the welcome bags that my sister-in-law Edith, Aunt Gloria, Aunt Lupe and the kids had glued cards, dice, and fake gems on to them to make them look “Vegasy”

I didn’t think we would have the dinner because we found out that the place where we were going to have it didn’t rent out the room anymore. We had been told everything was set but at the last minute we had no place to host the dinner. We couldn’t have it at my house because as luck would have it, the air-conditioner blew out before the reunion and there was no way I could have all those people in a house without air during the hot Vegas summer, so we called my sister and we transported tables and chairs to her apartment. On the day of the dinner they (my sister, my cousins Zack, Samantha, and some of my sister’s friends) were working on setting up tables and getting the place ready - they literally had things set up moments before the arrival of the first family members, who happen to show up two hours early because of the time zone difference

Originally we decided that we would have Mexican food and my mom was going to cook it, but as time got closer and the stress started to mount we decided that it might be better to have someone else help. One of my mom’s friend’s made little fried pin-wheels that are pretty popular here - you spray lemon juice and hot sauce on them and then eat them. My sister in law Edith and Aunt Francess made the quesadillas with the cactus tortillas and the Hibiscus water, my sister-in-law made the watermelon water just like they serve in Mexico with the broken chunks of ice. The dinner was supposed to be ready by 6:30 so we could start to eat at 7:00 pm, but things don’t always go as planned.

All the while that we’re running around trying to get the last minute stuff finished my brother keeps calling from my sister’s house to tell us that most of my mom’s side of the family is already there and they’ve been waiting since about 5:00. He wanted to know where we’re at and what we were doing. The last call I get from my brother is while I’m driving to my sister’s house with the Mexican waters and a few other things.

“They’re leaving.” he says.

“What?” I ask, “what do you mean they’re leaving?”

“They said they’ve been here long enough and now they’re leaving.”

I thought to myself, this is not how family reunions start on the Hallmark Channel, not that I watch the Hallmark Channel or even know that it exists, I didn‘t know what to so so all I said to my brother was “Ok,” I hung up and let my mom know what was happening. She was visibly upset about it and asked me if I could call my uncle and let him know what was going on.

I called my uncle and at first he doesn’t know it’s me, so I tell him that it’s me his most favorite nephew in the world - we both laugh at that and I explain to him that we have a lot of food and we’re on our way. He tells me that he’s been waiting for two hours - to which I tell him that the dinner was supposed to be at 7:00. He says that my aunt needs to have her insulin so he will see me tomorrow. I figure there’s no point in trying to argue with him, his mind was made up so I say ok we’ll see each other tomorrow.

I tell my mom what happened and she takes the phone and calls my aunt and basically tells her the same thing I told my uncle, then she hangs up and tells me “they’re just going back to the room to get her insulin and then they’ll go to the dinner.” I guess you just have to talk to the boss to get things done.

When I arrived at my sister’s house I was greeted by my cousin Leslie’s boyfriend Ray. He drove my Uncle Roy from Texas to Vegas because my uncle couldn’t fly due to a recent stroke he had. From what I understand I don’t think he really knew if he was going to make the reunion until a few days before when the doctor’s okayed him to drive. Ray introduced himself, “I’m Ray, I’m your uncle’s driver.”

Later I would tell Ray that for some reason when I heard my Uncle Roy had a driver I didn’t think I would like him. I had no reason not to like him, just a feeling that I wouldn’t. Ray answered with, “that’s ok, most people think they won’t like me when they first meet me.” After that we became fast friends - now, I have a feeling that if you leave us together for very long there will be some trouble somewhere.

We passed out the welcome bags that had Vegas information, a special Family Reunion Poker Chip, Family Reunion bottled water, a deck of cards, a flashing Welcome to Las Vegas lapel pin, and various other things. I didn’t know if the people were going to like that, but they all seemed happy with their little welcome bag.

Everything was unloaded, the food and drinks were served and everyone seemed to have a good time.

Mentally I checked off - Welcome Dinner, Check