Pino Family Reunion

So what do you get when you have 125 Mexicans in one room during the hottest heat wave of the summer....you get the Pino Family Reunion.  For months now, my family had been putting together this reunion and the day had finally arrived.  I appreciate the hard work of my Aunt Sandra and the committee of cousins who worked hard on the event.

I honestly had no clue how huge the Pino Family is and was shocked by the turn out!  I am just so used to our little group of Pino's from my Papa Tony and Grandma Ramona.  My Papa Tony is 1 of 8 kids, and sadly he is the only Pino sibling who is still alive, so this event was something he was really looking forward too.  The event was held in Corona at the American Legions Hall.  Each family was given a color and a name tag so everyone would be able to see which of the 8 siblings you were linked too.  Some of the families even wore the color they were given to help distinguish them.  We were YELLOW but decided against color coordinating at the event.  They had each family go up for photos and it was crazy seeing how small or how big some of the families were.  Jennie family (the blue family) was by far the largest family. They were probably 50% for the total people at the event. 

There were so many people there that I had never met.  I mostly caught up with close family.  However, it was nice to see people like my Dad, Aunt Sandra, Grandma working the room and catching up with distance relatives.  We did end up meeting some relatives who actually lived just up the street from us, which was pretty interesting.  

There were chips and homemade salsa on all of the tables (of course).  The dinner was catered by Maria who made some amazing tacos and there were even Mexican breads for dessert.  It was getting late, Madden was getting fussy, and honestly it was so hot in that hall, we decided after about 4 hours it was time to leave.  So I'm sad to say I missed out on watching my Dad hit the dance floor for 2 hours.  

It was a really nice event and a great history lesson on our family.  I know how much the whole event meant to Papa so I'm glad we were able to be there to support him and see how big of a family he and his wonderful sibling's all have.

Not too sure who these people are, but I think they are all cousins.

Skylar and her Great-Grandpa (my papa Tony) 

Madden and his Great-Grandma (my grandma Ramona)

Papa with all his 7 grandchildren and 7 great grandchildren, with 1 more on the way.

Our attempt at a family photo.

Matthew mingling with our relatives.

Skylar having a ton of fun dancing with cousin Toni.

And other attempt at a family photo that just turned out really bad.