Going to North Carolina!

For TWOO WEEKS!!! Not for good, for anyone who remembers that debacle. And technically, I'm only going to be there for little over a week. I'm arriving on the 6th and leaving on Russ' birthday. Of course I have to be back in town to celebrate my hubby's birthday. JUST KIDDING!!!!
Here's some pictures from when I went three years ago.
The first one is of my uncle Sann (dad's younger brother, #4), my aunt letty (dad's youngest sister, #), and my aunt letty's two youngest kids (Kevin and Kelly)

Then there's my twin uncles above, Meng and Sann (#5 and 4). The picture with me in it is with my twin uncles and Letty's youngest kids.

If that's confusing, try this:

姚明耀 (姚文堅) (b. 1948) -- Uncle Tony

姚明宗 (姚文龍) (b. 1949) -- Uncle Long

姚明哲 (姚文斯) (b. 1955) -- My dad

姚明雙 (姚文彬) (b. 1962) -- Uncle Sann

姚明全 (姚文彪) (b. 1962) -- Uncle Trung

姚慶玲 (b. 1965) -- Aunt Christina

姚慶涼 (b. 1966) -- Aunt Letty

Now in case you didn't know, that's seven out of 16 or 17 children, and ten that survived past infancy or something like that. I forgot the numbers. Can you imagine having that many aunts and uncles and cousins? Yeesh. I think each sibling had at least three kids each ... except for Uncle Sann. He only had two. But everyone else had three. And to complicate things more, my cousins kids call me aunt.

But I'm excited. When last I went, only four out of the seven siblings lived out there. In 2005, my Aunt Christina moved her family out there. So did my mom's youngest brother, Uncle Heng. So the only people out here are my family and uncle #2 (which I'm closing to Jenny anyway). But not too long ago, I got really homesick for my cousins and uncles. My mom's youngest brother (don't even ask me how many siblings she has! There's at least four that I know of, maybe five or more) used to come over to our house every night after he got off work. When we were growing up, my mom babysat his kids every day. Joanne's ten years younger than me and for years she was my shadow. She followed me everywhere around the house. And my uncle always took us everywhere. Anywhere we needed to go, he would take us! Sigh. No wonder my brother bawls every time he leaves NC or they leave LA.


And the good looking guy in the red chef's hat? That's the guy whose heart I broke when I left. Again, JUST KIDDING! His name is Epimenio, but they call him Pime. Wonder if he's still working there. Then again, three years is a long time. And I heard that when my cousin Stephanie visited last year or the year before, he like fell in love with her. What can I say? She's the favored one (and pretty one) in this family of seven aunts and uncles.