familia

AND THAT'S NOT EVEN ALL OF US!  THANKS TJ FOR THE PHOTO :)

that's what my god siblings and i refer to our big family.  it's kinda funny because aside from our immediate families, we are not blood related.  our parents were all friends (barkada, as they would call it) since they were in university back in the philippines.  somehow they all found their ways to vancouver, and stayed connected for that long. 
last night, we celebrated the parents who would be turning 60 (or 60-something) this year.  it was a great night, with all us "kids" preparing the food and dessert and drinks. we knew from the start that the 'rents would be all up in our business, making sure that we were managing to do everything like they did it every other weekend or so for the last 30 years at least!  in the end, and to the surprise and amazement of our parents, we pulled off a great backyard party.
i know that our generation has to start doing this on a regular basis... some of us already have kids of our own!  hopefully, we can make this a summer tradition.  it's tough now that a few of us are far away (annie, char... dennis ;p), but i know that we'll make it work.  my sisters, g'sibs and i all grew up knowing that the weekend was never far away and that we'd always get to see each other and hang out with the best brothers and sisters we never had.  when i have kids, i want them to have that too.