The Parents Meet the Parents

This is a little delayed, but last weekend we had a small party where the parents (both mine and Liz’s) got to meet one another for the first time. Up until now, the families hadn’t gotten together before, believe it or not. But with our recent engagement, it seemed like a good opportunity for everyone to meet one another, and to hang out a bit.

We all got together at Katie and Dan’s house, which was more of a halfway point between Chicago and Indianapolis. My folks drove in, along with my sister and her family. Liz’s family all congregated there as well, including her dad’s family (who flew in from Georgia).

Overall, I didn’t take a ton of photos as I was mostly going around chatting and talking to everyone. But here are a few that I did take, in between all the activity:

Centerpiece for the table.

Cameron, getting a jump-start on the delicious food.

Mmmmm.

Fanciest juice dispenser EVER.

Paige, always on the lookout to be helpful around the household.

Anne and Jackson play, while my dad looks on.

Outside, Jasmine peeks from out of the play area.

Shane and Jahnu, hanging out with Paige.

This is something I totally forgot about: on his right hand, Jahnu has this fairly unique mark.

Take a look at your palms for a moment. Most people have two major lines on their palms – a heart line and a life line. In Jahnu’s case, both lines are fused together, and he has one solid line across his entire right palm.

There are a few folks in my family that have this, and I think the general Chinese folklore is that this is some sort of “lucky” mark. It signifies that the bearer will either be skillful in some capacity, or simply be fortunate/lucky. One of my uncles, I think, has it on both his left and right hands.

I’ve got it on mine, too.

Liz and my mom, looking through my parents’ wedding photos (which my sister, Stacey, snuck up from Indianapolis).

Looking over old photos…

Outside, all the families posed for some group photos. Here, everyone’s getting some shots of the kids.

Heh. :)

Cameron, taking the sign behind him way too literally.

Near the end of the afternoon, everyone hanging out in the yard, watching the kids.

The day overall wouldn’t have been possible without a ton of hard work from Katie and Tricia. Basically, all Liz and I had to do was show up, as the two of them took care of all the details – the invitations, the arrangements, the food… all of it. I’m sure I don’t even know the half of what they did, getting everything organized. Suffice it to say, when everyone arrived… everything was more or less taken care of.

I wasn’t too nervous overall, and maybe only got nervous the last 30 minutes (prior to everyone showing up). The whole party went off without a hitch, and everyone got along smashingly – parents, siblings, all the nieces and nephews. Looking around, it felt spectacular to be surrounded by all these people, willing to travel so far to be with us, and to help us celebrate our engagement.