Comin' back from Cali
This weekend's family reunion turned out very well. It was held at a religious-based campground/convention center near San Bernadino. Beautiful looking area in the mountains, lots of nature around. A bear that roamed around late Saturday night, prompting a bunch of Yogi Bear jokes. However, after doing an interesting hike up one of the hills in the campground, we were hit in the face that this is southern California as you could see a thick layer of smog on top of the surrounding hills. We were thrown off by the camp rules regarding food since we're used to all-day feasts as opposed to a dinner bell. However, the big thing about this weekend was to get family together. (There were about 90 attendees at different points during the weekend. Most were from the U.S., although we did have a few come from the Philippines.)

I had already spent some time with a number of these relatives in the past, so it's not like I was walking into this cold. However, one thing that really struck us early on was that there was a big part of the family that most of us never knew about. Most of the adult relatives I knew from past gatherings emigrated to the U.S. about 25-30 years ago and then had kids born here (like myself). However, this weekend, many of the adults were born here and of mixed heritage. Take that another generation, and we have plenty of "white-looking" relatives, but it's all family. Talk about having fun with the "So, where are you from?" game that I often run into. Among my closer relatives, we're going in that direction with the cousins (roughly my age) that have recently married.

I had tons of fun with the extended family. It's now getting to the point where a 6-10 year age difference isn't as pronounced as it used to be (especially if we're all old enough to drink). Thus, there were about 20 or so of us in the demographic-friendly 18-34 range that spent a good amount of time together. We even added a couple of more cousins previously unknown to us into the circle. Should make for some fun times down the road.

Capped off the trip with a bit of sightseeing in Hollywood over by Mann's Chinese Theatre and the Kodak Theatre (home of this year's Oscars). It's a spiffy looking area, even when we were there about 10-11 p.m., and tones down the touristy vibe (besides the handprints and stars along Hollywood Boulevard). Seeing the stars on the Walk of Fame was a bit amusing, considering that the stars run up and down the street for a long while. So while it looks pretty cool to have your name by the Chinese Theater or even by the schlocky museums nearby, it seems odd that the stars would run past some lesser areas just a few blocks down, approaching Vine.