Celebrating With Dear Old Friends

We've known the Yousefians since our girls were young. They are like family. Our girls and Neda and Saba are like sisters. We may not see each other for many weeks but when we get together it feels like coming home.

Today was a 'coming home' of sorts, with Saba on break after finishing her third year of residency in Pennsylvania and Neda and Freddy visiting from Germany for the first time as a married couple. The grandmas were there, aunts, uncles, cousins, and Baha'i friends as well. It was a wonderful gathering. As always, Marzieh cooked her delicious food and even made two vegan dishes for us (she's an on-again off-again vegetarian so this is an area she knows well.)

Mehrdad and Marzieh in the kitchen (one of the grandmas on the right) working their culinary magic.

We celebrated Saba finishing her residency. She plans to take a bit of a break but will do some locum tenens work (physicians who fill in for other physicians on a temporary basis) in various locations to keep her skills up. She was talking about going to New Zealand. My dad used to talk about going to New Zealand. It just seems so far away....

Neda and Freddy got married in May in the quaint, beautiful village in Germany where they currently live. They were talking about having to find jobs when they go back. Ahh... the reality of settling down.

The rest of the pics are of people. Here the boys are staring at the cake, willing it into their mouths. Behind them are Gabriel, Lua, Freddy and Neda.

Neda and Freddy said the cake was really hard to cut into and laughed at their struggles.

Apparently they didn't get to feed each other wedding cake at their reception so they did it today.

Saba got help from both her sisters, though with her new surgical skills she probably didn't need any help.

Grandma Vafai, Shirin, Saba, Grandma Yousefian, Sharareh with her mom and dad.

Sharareh's parents again, Doug, Willie, and Richard on the couch.

The two grandmothers catching up over cake and tea.

Uncle Jamshid and cousin Elham.

Elham's boyfriend Bashir (she and Bashir are applying for med school.) With all the doctors and potential doctors in the room I felt right at home.

Saeed and Saba.

Kai enjoying his lemon cake.

Sorry Shirin, I have to post this picture. Shirin, Cyrus, and Willie.

I didn't get a picture of Kamran and Aram who came later, but they were there as well. I also didn't get a picture of Shirin's vegan carrot banana nut cake (which looked like a little hobo next to the professionally decorated cakes!) but it was scrumptious. I was very grateful to her for making it.