Happy Birthday Auntie Dee Dee!

Last weekend I traveled back to the homeland, Chicago, to celebrate my Auntie Dee Dee's 75th birthday. This was a surprise party organized by my cousins Theresa, Rosie, and Rita. I come from a very large extended family on my Mom's side. My Mom is from a family of 11, so even if all of my aunts & uncles had small families of their own, it would be a rather large family. Well, Auntie Dee decided to have 9 kids! I stopped doing the math years ago, but figure I have close to 50 1st & 2nd cousins just on my Mom's side! Here's a photo of me with the birthday girl. It was funny as she didn't recognize me at first. Guess losing all that hair made me incognito...

Here's one of me with my Uncle Joe. He's my Mom's younger brother and one of my namesakes. My grandfather was named James Joseph, so Mom just switched the names to get mine. As you can see, we have alot in common. I can easily see myself looking just like him in 30 years.

And here's a shot of Auntie's Dee Dee's clan (at least a portion of it, with in-laws). It was great fun hanging with all of them, catching up on old times, and getting drunk along the way. I hope we get many more chances to do this in the future.

Happy Birthday, Auntie Dee Dee. Hope you have many many more to come :-)