A nice birthday and needed change

So it was our third oldest's birthday last week. Hurray!   As I've written before, we usually consider this our half of the year.  But now things have changed.  Both our daughter-in-law and our granddaughter have birthdays in May.  Our son and daughter-in-law will likewise celebrate their wedding anniversary in May. Plus there is the Kentucky Derby!  We must fix our idea of when our half of the year starts, or if it means anything at all by now.  After all, the Transgender movement is trying to enshrine November (Thanksgiving) as the month for all things non-gender.  So it was only a matter of time.  

Nonetheless, whatever the movers of grand agendas say, for our part it was nice to have a celebration after some pretty rough weeks over the last couple months.  We know there are people in the world who have it worse than us.  People in third world countries, extreme poverty and starvation, embroiled in wars and invasions.  But then, as one of my sons once said, if you need to keep appealing to war zones and famines to remind yourself your life isn't too bad, that does say something. 

Nonetheless, we're still blessed, and we know it.  But as can happen in life, things can just torpedo you broadside and, for some reason, it sometimes feels like it hits all at once.  So after the dust settled, it was a joy to see our third oldest and his usual enthusiasm carry the day. 

It wasn't a milestone birthday, but we did pull out the stops.  One, because it was nice to celebrate and enjoy again and focus on the good of the last couple months.  Two, because his big 21st Birthday fell when Covid and lockdowns were still about, and it ended up being a bit compromised, with problems of the day mitigating the fun his brothers had around their 21st birthdays.

While it wasn't some grand trip through Europe, it was our version cast over several days owing to scheduling.  In an odd twist, of all the things he wanted to do, we dusted off an old game from their youth called Dread Pirate.  That was from a time when board games were ascending and some pretty hefty production standards were used.  In this case, he joked that the game was really just a pirate version of Chutes and Ladders with phenomenal production standards.  I mean, metal castings for playing pieces, cloth board, wooden box - that's impressive.  Truth be told, it was also fun.

Of course he received a sizeable amount of board game and game related material.  He is our game guru after all.  Including games that are apparently big in the video game world - Skyrim - and a little addition I threw on that's a D-Day based wargame.  I thought his birthday coinciding with what will likely be the last big hurrah for that historical event made sense. 

Otherwise we fired off some fireworks - since they're now legal before and after July 4th.  We pulled our resources and our oldest made him a phenomenal steak and lobster dinner. Again, our oldest has broken restaurants for us since there is seldom anything he can't cook better than what we'll find in even the best eateries in the area. 

Then the brothers set aside an entire day to play his favorite board game of all - Twilight Imperium.  After that we just chilled and watched a couple episodes of Blue Bloods.  When they were young, we usually took a day to make their own on their birthdays.  In recent years schedules just don't allow that, and we have to spread things out over a few days.  But it's worth it.   

Chutes and Ladders perhaps, but Grade A production values!

Making everything fun as usual

A pregame warmup for July 4th for his big day

Yeah, it was that good. 

The brothers and the game - I played but don't know what I'm doing