reunion and a reunion

reunion

Recently we had a family reunion for my dad's mom's side of the family. My grandmother died when my dad was 21yr old, and I was just 5 months old. I wasn't fortunate enough to know her, but it is nice to see that side of the family.

We soon realized that my mom's best friend since 1st grade was having a reunion next door.
We crashed. I'm so glad we did! This friend, Donna, has a cousin who was in the service many years ago. He married a Korean woman. The day of the reunion marked 3o years exactly since she came to America. She arrived at 26 years old. We talked quite a bit. It was extremely interesting. She kept saying how lucky Ellayna is. (Ellayna is adopted from Korea. She's 2 now and came home at 5 months old). She said Korean people are care free and love music. She made me promise to give Ellayna piano lessons. Ellayna clearly loves music. Most kids do, but her love is an extreme. I wished they lived closer. I could learn so much from this lady. Washington DC is a bit far from Ohio.

The best part of the day, I learned how to pronounce Ellayna's middle name. We gave her the middle name Keun-Kay. Keun is her birth mother's first name. Kay is my middle name, my mom's and also my mother-in-laws. I like to say that her name represents 4 women who love her very much and will always treasure her. I didn't know how to pronounce Keun. We were saying the first part "KEY" and the last part "OON" Like spoon without the SP. I thought this was pretty, but the way it actually should be said is even prettier. Not sure if I can describe it or not. QWEN. The vowel is a short e sound. So, after 2 years we now can correctly pronounce our daughter's name!