Happy Birthday to You (and you and you!)
Our family has a plethora of November babies, which essentially means that the month is one long party. (Not a bad way to spend 30 days, let me assure you!) My birthday is Veteran's Day which means that our whole family (being primarily employed by the U.S. government) gets a three day weekend in observance of the federal holiday. (This still cheeses my sister off because the extended weekend always translates to fun mini-trips, where as her birthday falls in Lent which translates to people being repentant, somber, and not willing to have their cake and eat it too...) Be that as it may, I can't help when I was born, so I embrace the built-in birthday bonus!
To celebrate this year, my whole family convened in Grapevine, Texas for some BIG fun (because everything in Texas is bigger, right?). We stayed at a hotel with an indoor pool AND free breakfast (and let me assure you we took full advantage of both....unlimited waffles at breakfast can lead to some
mega sized cannon balls afterwards!)--
and if that wasn't enough fun, we hit up LegoLand and an amazing restaurant called the Blue Mesa Grill for an epic Sunday brunch.
Grapevine an extension of the Dallas/Fort Worth explosion, but it cleaves to it's history which is showcased in an adorable downtown that was awash with micro-breweries, wine bistros, and little specialty shops you can't resist walking into. The streets were decked to the nines for the holidays, which helped it feel a little more like winter despite the Texas temperatures. It was the perfect little enclave to share some family time and recognize year number 31 for me, and celebrate (and yes, she actually does celebrate this!) my mom's 50th birthday which was a couple days later...
Our fun-loving JP also added a year in November, and we celebrated his birthday in conjunction with Thanksgiving. Venturing further into the heart of Texas, we spent the holiday weekend in San Antonio at my parent's house. It was the first time the whole family was in the new house together (the 7 Markowskis, the 4 Gauses, my parents, and their gigantic dog), but we (and the house) survived 96+ hours in close proximity, and still loved each other at the end of it all!
The Thanksgiving feast was epic with enough turkey, ham, potatoes, stuffing, salad, and desserts to feed an army-- which provided a lovely amount of leftovers to re-purpose over the weekend. That's my favorite kind of meal: cook once, eat three times!
Close on the heels of our Thanksgiving feast, we loaded up the family and some close family-friends for JP's birthday party. We went to Mo-mak's which is a fine purveyor of buckets of burgers and fries, but also has a large turf field where kids can run and play ball until they are exhausted (translation: good food, and entertainment all in one= a parent's dream!) The kids played ball, munched on burgers, played ball, ate cake, played ball (and thankfully, in all that activity, the food stayed where it should!), and played more ball. Afterward, when the burgers were gone, and the kids couldn't run any more, we had a bon-fire with friends to round out the fun.
November is a busy month. And, it takes a special kind of family to be able to handle all the partying that is necessary in the month. Thankfully, we are capable and always ready for a celebration.
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