Just for Fun

Or … On SKYPE as the NEW Photobooth

First, a little background.  Once upon a time, five Murphy kids lived on 14th Street in Brooklyn.  Then, they grew up and spread out over three continents.  They had a total of eight kids, and their kids spread out onto a few more continents.

I am the oldest of those eight cousins.  We’re now in Italy, Canada, England, Australia, New York and Costa Rica.  And some of us have had a few kids of our own.  When we talk about a family reunion, there’s definitely a lot of enthusiasm.

Now.  Imagine you’re looking at a zoomed-out view of google maps.  Imagine zooming in to our ‘cousins reunion’ about six weeks ago.  Find Central America.  Now Costa Rica.  Now, a beach town on the Pacific Coast called Samara.  Keep zooming.  Don’t get distracted by all the gorgeous scenery — I’ll show you that in a later post.  What I’m showing you now is in one of the two bedrooms of a cozy beach house called ‘Casa Caracol’ — so named after the snail-like spiral staircase that leads up to a mattress-carpeted sleeping loft.

Okay, stop.  Now you’re in the bedroom, looking at a reunion inside of a reunion.  Five of the eight of us were there physically — some with spouses and kids along — and we spent some time ‘reuniting’ with those that weren’t there.

These photos were taken during skype calls to the mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles, siblings and cousins who couldn’t join us for our incredible trip.  Aren’t they fun?  I love how you can tell which faces are looking at the person on the screen and which faces are looking at themselves in the tiny little box on the bottom.