4 pounds in 4 days and a Family Reunion!!!

Starting in 2013 on January 3rd I went back to eating low carb, gluten free...or at least as close to that as possible. As of Wednesday of last week I had lost 11 pounds! Yay me right? That's almost like 1 pound a week. At that rate in a year I can lose 52 pounds!

But this weekend I went to my family reunion in Arizona, left Friday came back Sunday and had Monday off because of Presidents day and guess what? In 4 days I GAINED 4 pounds! What the heck! How does that happen? It takes me a whole week to lose one pound but I can eat carbs and gain a pound a day?

Well no use crying over spilled milk. I'm just going to pick myself up and start over again and not just give up!

So anyway...the family reunion was so much fun that it was well worth the weight gain! Here's the only group photo that we took. Not everyone was there at this one, some had gone home, some had  gone to visit the Parker Dam or the London Bridge. I drew a little arrow so you could find Waldo, ok, not Waldo but me :)

My sister, Mom and I drove in on Friday. It took us about six hours, but we stopped quite a bit to stretch our legs along the way. Here's a picture of my sister at one of the rest stops. She's a character! This was a memorial to the Blue Star Memorial Highway, a tribute to the Armed Forces that have defended the United States.

We finally arrived at our hotel, the Blue Water Resort and Casino on the edge of the mighty Colorado River. Here's a view from my hotel room. Aren't the mountains in the background beautiful? I love Arizona.

Then we headed over to my cousin Michael's house where I was so happy to see everyone, my aunts, uncles, cousins and especially these wonderful ladies! From left to right, Me, my sister Lisa, my cousin Eliza, my cousin Laura, my cousin Elizabeth and my honorary cousin Santos.

These are the same ladies, but includes my cousin Stella in the blue in the middle, can't leave her out, she's our partner in crime!

The next day the whole family got together at one of the local parks. Each family had a certain color t-shirt to designate which one of the Tarango family siblings they belonged to.

First the banner that my cousin Albert and his son-in-law Robert had made. The photos at the bottom are of my maternal grandparents, the parents of my mother. Then on the tree there is a small circle with each of their ten children. Of the ten listed, only four are still surviving. Also on the banner are a picture of two houses. At the bottom left is the house where my mom grew up in Texas and the house on the right is the house her father built in Arizona which is the family house that my generation remembers.

So back to the t-shirts. On the front was another picture of my maternal grandparents and on the back was the name of each of the siblings, their children, grandchildren and great grandchildren. My cousin Norrie was in charge of the t-shirts and she did such a wonderful job!

Here's a picture of the back of the t-shirt. Just stop and imagine that all those names, all those people are alive and were there to celebrate the love of the two very serious people shown in the banner above. It's mind-boggling to me! I love the quote on the shirt, "FAMILY, like branches on a tree, we all grow in different directions, yet our roots remain as one"

My mother's favorite color is red, so of course when they asked us what color we wanted our t-shirts to be we chose RED!

Here's my mom in her red shirt. She was a little under the weather. She was just getting over the flu and the long car trip really wore her out, but she's a trooper!

And here's my sister and I in our red shirts and from the Prieto family who wore blue are my cousins Ramon, Rhonda and Nick. 

And I could go on and on and on sharing photos. We have photos of the egg toss, the pinata, the 3-legged race, the dancing, the food, white elephant game, dance offs, biscocho baking contest. It was a never-ending festival of fun and family and I am so glad to belong to this wonderful family!

I'll leave you with this last photo of the surviving siblings. There are only three of them that were able to attend. Their sister Maria unfortunately wasn't able to make the trip and she was greatly missed.