Warning! This is a mega-long entry!

Well, for those who don't know, I was in Philadelphia this past weekend to attend the wedding of my cousin (second cousin, actually). ^_^ It was quite a fun experience, and a rather lucky one in the sense that I only met this cousin last October when my parents and I went down to Philadelphia to visit my "aunt" (my mother's cousin).

We left Mississauga at about 10pm Thursday night and drove (well, my dad drove) through the night to reach their house at about 9:45am. The driving actually didn't take the full twelve hours--we stopped twice for about an hour each time so my dad could sleep a bit. Oh, and at the first rest stop I saw this van with what looked to be a giant Nemo on top of it!

After we got there, we hung out at my relatives' place until we could check into the hotel (~2pm) and then rested and got ready for the rehearsal/family dinner at 6. That was the end of Friday.

Saturday the wedding was at 10:30am, and was followed by a lunch reception at the church. Everything looked really nice!


Plus they didn't have organized photos right after the ceremony--or at all, in fact--so it didn't feel like the whole thing was dragging on and on.

Then too instead of a big Chinese banquet, all of the adults (family) went over to my relatives' house, while all the "kids" (singles/no kids, ~18-35) went out for to a very "posh" (as Kirstine described it) restaurant called Twenty21 in downtown Philadelphia with the bride and groom. They had a cocktail hour (hors d'ouevres and beer/wine for a little more than an hour) followed by a three course (soup/salad starter, entrée, dessert) dinner. Francine told me that they decided to go this route because she didn't really know a lot of the relatives, and she didn't want to spend her wedding day hanging out with a bunch of people she didn't know--which I think was a truly brilliant idea. If I ever got married (not that I'm planning to), I'd want to do the same thing! I found it a lot more enjoyable than the traditional Chinese banquet (although those can be fun too), and I'm sure Francine and Woo (her husband) found it more relaxing too. Especially since they didn't have to play any silly games for the amusement of their guests. =P

At the wedding I also ended up meeting a lot of second cousins I didn't even know existed! The bride, my cousin Francine, has two brothers who weren't home last October and whom I therefore met for the first time at the wedding. They're quite a lot of fun! The younger one, Albert, is my age and he just graduated with a degree in...business (?), and the older one, Ben,  is a pediatrician in Dallas. Apparently Ben just got engaged in February, so I got to meet his fiancée, Jodi(e?). Along with them I also met two twin second cousins, Mark and Mikail (sp?) from Brunei, and another cousin, Kirstine who's currently in Perth, Australia (her family has moved a lot).

We had a good chunk of time to talk and get to know each other, and it was a lot more enjoyable than I expected it to be (considering my difficulties in socializing with new people). On Sunday night (after church and an extremely long lunch at The Cheesecake factory--which I'll take about later) Albert, Ben, Kirstine, Mike and I played Cranium, and that was a lot of fun. Somehow the three cousins from different countries (Kirstine, Mike and myself) were able to beat the two brothers. And that's no small accomplishment, considering that we weren't able to figure out one of the "humdingers" (guess the title of a hummed/whistled tune) because neither of them got Jeopardy in their countries! Actually, the funny thing was that Ben and Albert got quite a few "mindmelds" (write down three things in a category and try to get one matching answer) and they never managed to do it, even though you'd think they'd have some sort of sibling understanding/intuition!

But yeah, my point is that I enjoyed getting to know my cousins, and I wish I could have known them growing up, because I think they would've been a lot of fun.

Oh, and backtracking a bit, my Cheesecake Factory story: Steph and I wanted to go to the Cheesecake Factory in Denver, but we were there on Valentine's Day, so the lineup was down the street and couldn't be bothered. So when my aunt suggested we try it, I was really excited. But we had a party of like 26 so it was impossible to get a table together. Even splitting us into two tables of 13, it took 45min for the first table to get seated, and then another half an hour for the rest of us. Everyone in the second group (all of us cousins, plus our parents) was getting pretty impatient already, and then our table's (we were further split into two tables--"kids" and parents) orders got messed up twice! First they missed our calamari appetizer (took 20-30 minutes for them to get that problem fixed) and then they misplaced Kirstine's hamburger (another 15-20 minutes wait since we were all polite and waited for her order to come before eating). Everyone else (i.e., not me) was so fed up of the place by the end of it, they just wanted to leave without dessert, so I didn't want to order cheesecake (the whole point of going there!) and hold them back.

But all's well that end's well. The parents ordered a white chocolate macademia cheesecake slice to share, so I got to finish that off for them, and later on I got a slice of their Godiva cheesecake to go. It was an $8 US slice of cheesecake, but it was SO worth it! =D I don't think my cousins are likely to go back, but I think that if I was in a party of 4-5 people or less, I would definitely go again!

After lunch, my mom, my aunts and I (the other cousins went home before the adults--except for me) stuck around the mall where the restaurant was located and shopped. I got a framed Ray Bourque 11x14 print for only $10 US!

We left on Monday morning and on the way back stopped at the Waterloo outlet mall between Syracuse and Rochester. We bought a bunch of polo shirts for my brother, and my mom went crazy at the Dress Barn! Out of the ~3 1/2 hours we spent there, I'd say that 2 1/2 of them were spent in that store! Oh well, I got two white shirts and a snazzy bag from there, so I'm not complaining.

Actually, I really love the bag! It's black and can be customized with 5/x7 photos! So of course yesterday after work (yes, I went to work--and did 2 1/2 hours of OT as well!) I spent my night going through photos and Photoshop-ing them for printing and pick-up today. I love it because, really, how else would I be able to get a hockey bag/purse? Right now I've got an Aebischer picture in it, but I printed out a bunch (special deal! 5x7s for only $0.99 at Futureshop!) so I'll be able to change the picture when the mood strikes me!

All the photos:

Unfortunately, to end off the trip, our return home was delayed by a 1-hour detour at the Lewiston (or one of them!) bridge! The border people didn't tell us anything, they just gestured at us to turn around and go back and we had to drive around looking for the way to another border crossing! It was a disappointing end to an otherwise good trip.

But wait! This post isn't done yet! I got to watch "The War of the Worlds" for work today! Instead of a company picnic or something, our group (TAG) rented out a theatre at the Paramount and got to see a 1:30 show. We also got popcorn and a drink. So today was a nice relaxing day after the crazy  busy month-end work we had yesterday. :)