Yay for cousins!!!

On my mom's side, there are 3 of us girl cousins. Alyssa, Emily and myself. Alyssa and I grew up somewhat together being that she lived in St Pete where the rest of the family lives. Em however, we didnt get to see very often as she was in Arizona for those years. Family dynamics what they are, we all had different thoughts on who was the favorite blah blah blah. Our grandparents (well, mostly grandmother) is a hard one to read shall I say so none of us never thought we were especially well liked but always thought the others were favored. Of course none of this came to light when we were younger b/c we didnt feel free to voice our "concerns".

Fast forward a good many years and the family has a blow up over me asking if the tea was sweet or not. I dont even know that blow up does the situation justice. It was the start of WW3 there for a few days. Good times. I will always remember standing with Alyssa in the kitchen and the look of Holy Shit, here we go on our faces. Fast forward again and grandma's bitchy tendencies are no longer a closet topic. In fact, most of the family gets a good laugh at how we all used to cower to her.

So, 2 years ago-ish, she has a birthday. The whole freakin' family comes in to town for it. We cousins decide to have a couple meals to ourselves since we havent caught up with each other in a very long time. Its different when you are kids and now we are all edumacated and working. We even got to hang out with the long lost Jeff and his wife. We had a blast! It was fun to look back over our childhood and see how we each saw things a little differently. The girls ended up in a slumber party (with matching PJs). We went to melting pot and this terrible Japanese place. Em and Alyssa just giggled at the memory of that place. I would have blogged about that god awful place had I been blogging then.

Anyway, the girls have stayed in touch since then and I just found out that Emily is coming to my shower in June!!!! I am so excited that she is coming. I know its a lot for her to be off work and to come from DC. Jeremy is afraid is going to be a big giggle-fest at our house for the couple nights they are in. Thats the idea! I havent always been able to say yay for family but growing older has helped me see that family isnt so bad when you can pick which parts you want to be closer to.