Shelby's Life and Whatnot

Are We Related?

Yesterday we went to a very fun surprise birthday party for cousins of mine. Actually, Merny, the birthday girl, is my dad's cousin, which makes her my second cousin, and her daughter Tracy my third cousin. I think.

Anyway, we arrived at the party and went to the kitchen. Tracy started making introductions: "These are my mom's cousins, Ron and Shannon, this is so and so, this is so and so, and this is Shelby and Kevin, my mom's cousins. Wait a minute--are you related?" The four identified cousins shot each other that look that says "Have I ever seen you before? Are we related?" and we quickly did the "I'm Gary Rosiak's daughter--Ted Rosiak's granddaughter" "Oh! She's Uncle Ted's granddaughter! He's Norbert's son" "Oh, Uncle Norb!" Phew.

Of course I could have just waited a few minutes. My Aunt Sharon (Dad's sister) came in and she knows EVERYONE in the family and exactly how we're all related to each other. It's quite handy.

I also had a nagging feeling the whole night--where have I heard these names before. Did we invite them to our wedding?! I know for sure they weren't there, and I was fairly sure that we had invited them, but I didn't want to be involved in a "Didn't we invite you to our wedding?" "No" "oh, yeah, sorry." so I held my tongue. I was nervous that they might suddenly remember that we invited them and ask how we liked our gift--mmmmm, what did you send us again?

Once we got home last night I checked our invite list and sure enough, we had indeed invited them to the wedding. Luckily their recollection was as poor as mine.

The party itself was a lot of fun. It was a Las Vegas theme complete with a roulette wheel, blackjack table, and poker table. I played a little blackjack and after losing several hands I left it to Kevin. He kept winning and winning and winning--pretty good for someone who wasn't entirely up on the rules of the game. I keep telling him he needs to play for real money in Vegas but I'm not sure he's confident enough for the Big Leagues.