Quinceanera.

When I was about 4 or 5 I started praying for a little sister. Like, really really praying for a little sister. My parents had always wanted to adopt and asked us kids to be praying with them about it. I think I officially deserve some sort of award for how hard I prayed for a sister from that point on. My parents, after having really thought it through for a long time, decided to "fast" talking/thinking/praying about it for a whole month - I suppose to test God, to see what He would do. In that time, a man approached my parents and said that he had heard that they were interested in adopting and wanted to know if my parents would pray about adopting his granddaughter.
Can you guess what happened?

So, my sister is Mexican, which is pretty awesome on many levels. She has beautiful, dark skin, we eat a lot of Mexican food (once for Thanksgiving even), and, when she turned fifteen, we got to throw the most amazing party that was all about her. Which I think is entirely appropriate considering God practically wrapped her in the classy Jesus-style swaddling clothing and landed her in our arms.

The Quinceanera is a huge deal in the Mexican culture. Or maybe just to my sister. Or perhaps both. It signifies the girl moving into womanhood and all that sweet, tear-jerking jazz.

Some classic Quinceanera traditions:

The father removes the flat-soled sandal...

and then he replaces that sandal with a high-heeled shoe.


Various family members make speeches of varying lengths and with varying degrees of embarrassment and charm. (All, I might add, while adding something to her person. Earrings. Hair jewels. Etc.)

After the series of formal, all-about-Cassidy remarks, there was the father-daughter dance. Beautiful. Epic. Photo-worthy. Not a dry eye in the house, not a dry eye.

And then we partied. Because Cassidy Nicole Lance is a girl worth partying for.

We ate (Mexican, of course), we danced, we played games, we laughed - all things a truly good party should contain.