Travel to Katerina & Beyond: Kara's Bat Mitzvah

We were thrilled to share the celebration of Kara becoming a bat mitzvah. Kara is cousin Larry & Gail's daughter; and we love her to pieces. She is smart, funny, pretty and she had tremendous grace and poise during the long ceremony and let it loose at the after party. The party was one of the best parties I've ever been to; from the cocktail hour to the dessert buffet. Full of fun and entertainment. There were 75 of Kara's friends there and the rest of the 250 were adults at a lovely beach club on Davenport Neck on the LI Sound. As soon as the kids got in the door, the shoes came off and socks went on for non-stop dancing. Larry and Gail, the unbelievably creative folks that they are, put together a very funny video of them as stereotypical middle-aged Italian (Larry)/Jew (Gail) talking about the life of Kara with a stream of pictures.

Poor Katerina was sick and couldn't attend. She would've had such a great time and so many people were looking forward to seeing her for the first time. I bought her a $100 party dress from Talbots which I will be returning this weekend since the next time she'd have an opportunity to attend such a party, she will have grown out of the dress for sure.

The ceremony was very moving and I haven't been to one since I was a kid and my own friends celebrated their bar/bat mitzvahs. The rabbi was warm, bright and funny. He was very inclusive and brought the Torrisi side of the family up at different points in the ceremony to participate. It is certainly a day that Kara will always remember; as will we all.

Unfortunately, I didn't get that many pictures, but I did get a couple of good ones.