My name is Dean Santarinala, and I am a 20-something living in the Chicagoland area trying to find my place in the Universe. I have always enjoyed art and drawing, and along the way I picked up a camera and fell in love with photography.
Two weekends ago I went home for my niece’s 1st birthday party. Filipino parties are pretty boring for me when there’s no one my age to converse with, so I mostly played with my nieces, but the real treat of these parties is THE FOOD! I miss it so much when I’m at school! My mom made me a care package of Filipino food to take back to school with me, but I forgot to grab it off the coffee table before I left! :-(
I hung out with the fam yesterday to celebrate the 3rd birthday of my niece, Leila. I also got to meet my 3rd cousin on my Dad’s side, Catherine. That means that we have great-great grandparents in common. I had to look it up on this handy wikipedia cousin chart. Everybody’s family in the Philippines!
The reason I came home this weekend was because my brother is turning 30 today and my parents wanted to have dinner as a family to celebrate the occasion.
My mom loves my niece!
My other niece explores under the table.
Takeout chinese food.
My niece is still learning to talk. Barney helps.
My sister and her family.
Happy happy birthday cake. My dad played a birthday song CD which brought back memories.
My aunt and grandma pray the rosary in tagalog downstairs.
I try to go home once a month to visit the fam — usually I get pretty homesick when I look thru my photos, haha.
Eating good ol’ Tex-Mex in Old Town and celebrating my birthday (a week late) with the fam:
Ninong Ian stealing Leila’s juice.
Sorry for not updating for the past week; Unfortunately for me, it’s been a week full of drunkenness, debauchery, and studying. Although drinking is now legal, nothing has changed. I soldier on, trying to figure out how I fit into the grand scheme of things, and I’ve picked up more knowledge in the past year (though some of this I’ve already known for a long time and just ignored):
