Birthday Party Extravoganza

If you follow me on Instagram, you've probably already seen some of our pictures from New Orleans last weekend.  Keep your eye out for posts on our trip there soon.

While Tyler and I have wanted to visit NOLA together for a while, the drive is really just too far to take for just a couple days of vacation and then to come back.  But we also had another reason for making a trip to Louisiana, and when we found out about it we knew we could turn two trips into one.

For years, various parties have been hosted for various reasons in Shreveport (where my Uncle Bob and Aunt Chris are from).  A couple years ago we just went down for my Uncle Bob's 80th birthday, and this year it was Aunt Chris' 80th, my grandma's 70th, and various other birthdays in the family that were celebrated at one event.

My grandma with a picture of my mom and dad.

Aunt Chris on her 80th

My cousin made all 5 cakes for each birthday!  She's pretty talented, and all the cakes were really unique.

My grandma's cake.

Aunt Chris' cake.

 This side of my family is really big, so Tyler always gets to meet someone new to talk to.  This time he talked to some of my cousins that he hasn't met yet, and revisited with some other family.

My parents at the party.  The party was held in the conference room of a casino/hotel in Bossier City, and lunch was catered in the conference room across the hall.  

Anyone notice how similar my dad's and Tyler's shirts are?  We thought it was funny that they were unintentionally twinkies.

 Aunt Chris' "80" balloons, and Grandma's bouquet of flowers for the table.  Each birthday person got their own set of flowers to take home that were unique from the other bouquets.

This is my Uncle Bob, Aunt Chris' husband and my grandpa's uncle by blood and brother by adoption.  Since my grandpa was adopted by his grandparents, it sometimes makes family relations confusing.  That and, there's just so many of us that we'd probably get confused anyway.

My dad with my little cousin.  Many years ago at Christmas, he gave her the nickname "Evelyn."  She was pretty young, and it hurt her feelings a little bit because Evelyn was not her name.  To make up for it, her mom told her to start calling my dad "George."  About seven years later, the Evelyn/George feud still lives on.

This shindig began about 1:00 in the afternoon, and ended at 7:00.  Since Shreveport is sort of the mini-vegas of the south, all the adults went and wandered all three floors of the casino that is connected to the hotel.  Tyler and I don't really enjoy gambling, because it is a gamble, but I put in $2 to one game so that I could get a free cocktail from the waitress and ended up with $24 back from the same game, so that was the extent of our gambling experience.

After everybody left, we stood out front to take some pictures by the grand fountain in the front of the casino.

While I was changing my camera settings, a guy started talking to Tyler and told him that he lost $1,000 that night gambling....which is why we don't really gamble much.  My personal belief is that if you are going to gamble, you should count the amount you decide to spend as "fun" money.  If you make more, good for you, but if you lose what you had then you stop there and you had your fun for the night.  I'm just glad my "fun" money was only like $5 and not more.

Tyler and I in front of the fountain.  

Birthday parties in our family feel more like family reunions, it is always fun to see family again.  One of my aunts commented on how it is sad that some of us who just live 2-3 hours away have to drive 6 hours every couple years to spend time together.  I guess busy schedules just get in the way too often.

What are birthday parties and reunions like in your family?