let me introduce to you

This is my immediate family, who are squishy and lovable.

We all went/go to college, which is why some of us like to hang out in graduation robes sometimes. This picture makes it seem like we kind of look alike too, which is not necessarily always the case.

This is my husband. His name is Ames, and we've known each other more than a year now. He wants to be a youtube star.
I talk about him a lot. He's really cute, and he's really nice, and he's got these eyes that make me go woozy because they're so deep, aren't they? Yes they are. We've only been a little Bell family for a few months, but (and they always say this) it feels like so much longer. For real, I feel (and they always say this) that we've been together for years and years and years and I'm starting to wonder how we ever existed without each other. I mean, of course we existed without each other, but you know what I mean (they always say that too, when they don't know what else to say). He's the most thoughtful boy a girl could ever ask for. Also, he's really snuggly when I'm freezing at night (which is almost always). Also, he indulges my headband collection (you thought I was going to call it a headband obsession, didn't you? Wrong). Also, he thinks I'm really cool and funny and talented and a kind of fashionista, which is all very nice and flattering, so I like to keep him around. He also sings a lot and very well, which is easy on the ears. Ames used to have very blond hair when he was young and kind of looked like Zach Morris. He thinks it's funny when I suck at Mario Kart and try very hard not to pout about it, though he beats the game every time and doesn't make any effort to hide it. He speaks Japanese. He's going to teach theater to high school students which makes me so proud and excited because he'll be such a good teacher. He'll contribute very pleasing genes toward our tiny Bells sometime in the undetermined future.

This is my dad Andy. He drives a boat and practices Wii bowling when he should be arranging music.
My dad is really cool, in that ultra-nerd kind of way. He wanted to be in the Coast Guard until he woke up one day and realized he needed to get a degree in Viola Performance, which is probably really good because I definitely see him poking around music libraries and spending hours in practice rooms, not Guarding the Coast. To compensate, however, he's got a veritable armada at our house in Maine consisting of two canoes, a row boat, a peddle boat, and a speed boat-- though he won't be satisfied until we can get him a little sailboat. Won't he be darling in a little sailboat? He's got this exploding wheezy laugh when he thinks something is especially funny that goes like this: "EXPLOOOOOOOODE-WHEEZ-WHEEZ-WHEEZ" and sometime his face turns bright red too. He's had the same haircut since he was seven years old. Once he brought a girl a dozen roses as an "I'm Sorry" on the night he broke up with her, which was an Oops. He and his friends made up a student in college called Frank DeLong who was actually enrolled in some classes and turned in assignments and curiously publishes pieces in my dad's string method books. He's a sucker for small dogs and takes them running. He's one of the smartest people I know, and I really like eating lunch with him at Gandolfo's when he quizzes me on the names of the sandwiches and why they're important in New York. I'm pretty glad I inherited my Polishness from him.

This is my mom Diane. She is the most beautiful and Aretha Franklin owes her money. This is not a lie.
My mom's jingle/voice-over voice is not only almost unrecognizable, it is also awesome. She has a degree in classical voice performance but should have been a Disney voice. She has sung hundreds of commercials, most notably for Tang (hilarious), Campbell's Soup (the ones in the late 80's-- you all have heard them), and My Little Pony (told you she's famous). She also sang backup for Aretha Franklin a few times when we lived outside of Detroit, which is why Ms. Franklin owes her money. She drove Bobby McFerrin to his hotel after one of their rehearsals (cigarette-tap). She's one of the most kind and thoughtful people I've ever met, though she simultaneously has the capacity to crust three inches thick when someone (usually her kids) needs defending. She's got a great collection of Santas that we like to set out each year for Christmas. Once we got to play Marmee and Amy together in Little Women for a whole summer which was not only a dream come true, but also one of the sweetest experiences in my life. Her middle name is Claire, which is why I want to have a little girl named Claire someday. I can always tell how proud she is of me by the things she doesn't say, or when she tears up. She's spontaneous and buys a Wii and Beatles Rock Band kind of just on a whim, which is definitely to our benefit too. She's funny enough to be on Saturday Night Live (can you picture Kristin Wiig + my mom?). I don't really look like her, but I'm glad we have matching eyes.

My little sister's name is Elizabeth. She's a really good musician and her nickname is Biz. She wants to live to be 100 years old.
Mom wanted to call her Elizabeth without any nicknames, but Elizabeth turned into Bizzy and then into Lizzy and she's been Lizzy ever since. She used to toddle toward the JCPenny's catalog in my mom's hands when she was learning to walk, and I'd set up a fortress of solitude on the couch with the coffee table pushed right against it so tiny Bizzy couldn't crawl up to me. She used to be a Trombone Performance major (keeping the music performance tradition going in the family) but then realized how much she hated playing classical music, so isn't doing that anymore, which I think is cool and very true-to-herself of her. It turns out she's really good at drawing too, which shouldn't surprise anyone because she's really, really good at basically anything she tries doing. Like cooking, for example. We used to fight over silly things, like this pink house that was in our town in Michigan, and we convinced ourselves that the other wasn't allowed to like the pink house because we already individually liked the pink house. We like to have a good laugh and still do it a lot. She's real supportive of me, and that started particularly when I moved home because of a bum thyroid. She's getting married on January 15, 2010, which is cool because then Ames and I can hang out with her and Spencer for eternity, and I don't think we'll get sick of each other.

This is Spencer, who will shortly be my brother-in-law. We went on a date once.
Spencer Bean is the reason why my sister and I will continue to have the same initials after marriage (EB). He's going to throw some nice blond-haired-blue-eyed genes into the Dabczynski mix, which will be interesting since there aren't many of those on either side of our extended family. He speaks Swedish and tells us all how to pronounce things at IKEA. We went on that date the night before I turned 19, which is funny because then he celebrated Biz turning 19 too, three years later. Then when she was in Japan this summer for like a month we went on another kind of date that was only a kind of date because he bought me dinner, but they were already engaged by then so it didn't count "like that." He's a real easy-going guy and likes sports, which is good for my dad. He's really nice and patient and is happy to help people do things, which is good because he's good at lots of things like computers and technology things. He and Biz are playing Young Scrooge and Belle opposite each other at HCTO this year, which is cute because that's how they were friends and kissed for the first time in the first place. When Ames and I got married, I inherited five brothers-in-law, but since I've known Spencer so long and since he belongs to Lizzy, I feel like he belongs to me as a BIL a little closer than the others, and I think it's neat that the Dab clan will be a full set of six instead of five.

I'm thankful for my family at this Thanksgiving time, even when we all look gross squinting into the sun after a 2- or 4-mile race on Thanksgiving morning. We ate a lot of food for the rest of the day, so it's good we got an early workout.