50 years (in a row!)

Back row:  John (my brother in law), Marcus (my Marcus), me
Second row:  Natalie (my sister), Henry (my nephew), Julia (my niece), Alex (my Alex)
Third row:  Dad & Mom!
Photographed Sunday, April 10th, 2016

This past February was my mom & dad's 50th wedding anniversary.  For months, my sister Natalie and I had been hounding them to tell us how they wanted to celebrate their big day, and after throwing out ideas like us sending them on a holiday somewhere, or renting a house where we all got together, my mom said, "You know what I want?  I want us all to go out to dinner where we all get dressed up.  And I want a family photograph, because the last one I have of all of us together, Henry [my sister's son] was an infant.  And I want a photograph of all my grandchildren."

So once Natalie and her family organized their schedules and bought tickets to come to Houston, last night, that's exactly what we did.

First, we took the family photo, above: I set up my camera and my tripod and clicked away (but like the Wizard of Oz, pay no attention to the remote in my left hand.)

Next, we took a photograph of the grandkids:

Julia, Henry, Alex

And then Dad said, "I want a photograph with my sons-in-law!"  So we took this:

But then Dad was like, "Wait. No.  I need one where we all look like we're the same height."  

Now, both Marcus and John are freakishly tall (6'4" and 6'5", respectively), and Dad is ... not.  But hey, it was Dad's night.  So we accommodated:

Close enough.

After our photo session, we headed out to dinner.  We chose Triniti restaurant, partly because it was well-recommended by friends of mine who are in the food industry, and partly because hey, we're from Trinidad, we were all going out to dinner together, so a restaurant named "Triniti" seemed appropriate.

It was amazing.

And then suddenly, right before dessert, the power went out in the restaurant.

It apparently affected the entire street.  But did we care?  No!  We're Trinis!  We grew up with power outages!  And so the restaurant brought some candles over to our table, and we kept right on partying.

So happy 50th anniversary, Mom & Dad.  Here's to 50 more.