It has been a while since I sent you all an e-mail. Please forgive me, I had not abandoned you, but have been quite busy with other matters, but you are always on my mind and heart.
This past last weekend, Alberto and I were at his Alumni Weekend. I was so excited to see Alberto's face saying hello to everyone he knew and how he made new acquaintances with other Alumni, that I thought to myself how wonderful it is going to be in our Family reunion to meet again those cousins we have met in the past few years, and meet for the first time a lot of you.
It is incredible that we are only three months away from all this happening. We started planning the reunion last September, and look how far we have gone. But still, we have some details to take care of, and this is where I really need everyone's help.
I am going to send in a separate e-mail a form called R.S.V.P. For those of you not familiar with this term, it is a formality used mostly on wedding invitations when they are inviting you to a reception, or on Corporate or Governmental affairs where the organizers or hosts need to know exactly how many people are attending this reception, to be completely sure they have enough food, drinks and tables and chairs for everyone. The term means "Répondez si'l vous plait" which in plain English means "Please reply or confirm".
I will be asking very simple questions that will enable us to prepare Name Badges, T-shirts, Tour, Banquet and Family Tree Albums. I have most of the information from some of you, but still, I am missing some of the complete information from others. It will only take you five minutes of your time in order to reply, if you do it this simple way. When you receive it, read it, click on "Forward Message", write my address in "TO", move your cursor to the questions and answer right there. When you are fin ished, just click on "SEND" and it will get to me. Even if for some reason you will not be able to attend the reunion, please answer the questions and send it back.
For those of you that will be receiving it via Fax or regular mail, please answer the questions right there with a pen and send it back same via. PLEASE, everyone do it, even the ones that live in St. Louis. I know you will be at the reunion, but we stil l need this information to be ready for you.
We already have our plane tickets in our hand. We found a wonderful deal, thanks to cousin Judy who was checking the Internet for the best deals, and she told us about it. We really got a wonderful deal and saved more than 60% on the regular fare, with TWA. The sooner you get your tickets, a better deal you will get. I am sure other airlines leaving your cities might have something like this. Do not procrastinate any longer and do it now. We will be arriving in St. Louis on Monday July 12 and will be departing on Monday July 19. We want to make sure that everything will be ready for this joyful event.
Also, once I have all the R.S.V.P. e-mails back, we can determine exactly what the costs for everything will be, and we can divide them among all of us. Alberto and I have already paid $500.00 to the hotel when we signed the contract for our event, which will come off final banquet bill. I will work on all of this and tell you in a week or so.
We are missing a lot of biographies from you in the Web page!! Come on, sit down and write a little bit! It is fun to start knowing all of you and learning so many things that you do and like before even meeting you. Remember that we will not have a lot of time to sit and talk to everyone for a long period of time during the reunion, for there will be a lot of us there, but if we start reading from each other before we get there, it is going to be a lot easier to get to know everyone.
Well, I better be ending this e-mail so I can start working with the other one. Don't forget to send it back as soon as you answer the questions. I will be expecting it not later than tomorrow, or you will hear from me!
I promise I will write very soon again! We send all our love to you and your families. Take care, and God bless you.
Your cousin,
Zulema