I am still in Raleigh until tonight, but I wanted to be able to recap this weekend so far. There are a LOT of pictures, so I will try to keep the dialogue short.

This weekend was not looking too great as Hurricane Joaquin flirted with ruining any chance of leaving the house, but fortunately it turned back out towards the sea and we weren’t stuck inside forever. The weather was definitely less than optimal, but the company (and the food) was great!

Let’s group these into a few categories shall we?

The Setting

We went to Raleigh, NC for an informal “reunion of cousins.” In the end we had 13 people together from both coasts and the midwest for an epic weekend.

Here is our joy about that fact:

Neil’s cousins do not mess around when it comes to events.

We were finally able to use the fire pit for s’mores and wood-fired pizza by the end of the weekend.

Two grills because there can never be enough meat.

Theater room.

The People

Rainy and humid hair shots.

Rolling 13 deep to brunch.

Poker.

A situation behind me was more important than posing for blog pictures. Not for me. #allbusinessallthetime

The Food

Oh man, the food.

I was going to try and chronologically list all the meals, but let’s just lump them all together. It is a good thing I wore yoga pants all weekend.

Fish tacos.

Pesto cheese bread

This was only about 1/34233 of the amount of grilling that went down.

I decided to put some of my pumpkin spice almond butter on bacon. It does not photograph well, but it makes up for it in taste.

Wood-fired pizzas with homemade dough. Apparently I can never escape it even when I flee the state.

Sunday morning involved a scrambled egg contest that has been happening since last year between two of Neil’s cousins and his sister-in-law.

Plating was also a judging criteria.

(Instagram)

Three judges.

We had a very sophisticated scoring rubric going on. His cousin Ankur reclaimed his win from last year.

Sunday night involved cookie brownies as a running joke from the last time we were here, but also because they are one of the most delicious things in the whole world.

Most people had to leave Sunday night, so before they did we made sure to snap a family picture. I don’t know why my face is doing that.

The weekend was so amazing and I loved being able to hang out with everyone again. Time to start planning the next one and I am going to spend the rest of today not thinking about returning to the real world tomorrow!

I hope you had a great weekend!

Questions:

• What was the best thing you did this weekend?
• What was the best thing you ate this weekend?
• When was the last time you got together with family?