This is a picture taken for Christmas 1998 of my old friends/family, the Kubalas. I first met them in June of 1990 when my family moved in across the street from their house in Charleston, South Carolina. I met Jenn & Jay my first or second day there, who later introduced me to the rest of their family: mom and dad, Lita & Al; big sister Cindy; and their grandfather and grandmother, Lolo and Lola. I was always over their house after school and during the weekends and I frequently spent the night.

Al and Lita were like a second pair of parents to me. They were very loving and kind and always made me feel welcome. Mrs Kubala, in my opinion, is one of the world's best cooks. She introduced me to food like adobo, pancit, lumpia and her little fried fish that you eat with banana sauce. Yum! I also learned that you can pretty much eat anything with rice. =) She could be very silly & I remember that she liked to dance around the house in her little jeans and she loved her bowling and bingo. ParTAY! ;) Mr Kubala was also quite the bowling fanatic. He won many trophies, so many in fact that he used to keep most of them in the space underneath the stairs. Jenn told me about a pair of gold and red bowling shoes that he got for Christmas one year that he was very proud of. I got to see them last year and I have to admit, they were pretty cool-looking. =)

On to the Kubala kids... The eldest child was Cindy. Good ol' Cindy. She was the kind of person your mother always wanted you to be like. She was very intelligent, beautiful, fluent in a couple languages and just plain old nice. There was one time where my mother and I were sodding the front yard of our house in Charleston after school and Cindy voluntarily came over to help. Mind you, this is in the late summer afternoon heat of Charleston. My lazy behind would have stayed inside with the A/C. From that day on Cindy was on a pedastal in my mother's eyes. ;) Cindy later went on to get her college degree at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Florida, where she met her future husband Greg. They did their thing after college, with working and moving around and getting married and starting a family. They eventually moved into a house here in Virginia that was coincidentally nearby mine. So close that it's literally down the street from me. If I was to drive down the main road to the mall in about 15 minutes I would pass a street that leads to her neighborhood. Greg's got a great job nearby and Cindy is a wonderful stay-at-home mom to their handsome son, Matthew. Matthew will be one year old come June.

Jennifer, the middle child, is one of my closest and oldest friends. I've known her since I was 9 years old. You can read about her by clicking here.

Last but not least is John Joseph, aka J.J. or Jay, troublemaker and chucklehead extraodinaire. I've known him since he was a wee little scamp of age 3 and now he's 14, going on 15 this November. Jay was a normal boy, making mischief, annoying his sisters and playing baseball outside. During the summertime he was always out playing and he had a perpetual farmer's tan that we used to joke on. Jay is now finishing up the 8th grade at my old middle school (hated it), still the troublemaker, still in sports and still a chucklehead.

This is one of my favorite pictures of Jennifer, me & Jay, even if it is a little dated. This was taken around June of 1994 at one of those instant photo booths at the local amusement park, Frankie's Fun Park. You had four poses to choose from and every one of them had Jay's big head blocking ours. We had to keep pushing his head down but it kept creeping up. This one came out the best and I'm glad we chose it. This was back when I had bangs and my hair was much shorter, Jenn had glasses (which she still sometimes wears) and braces, & Jay was much smaller. Can't really push him around now without the fear of being pushed back. :)