Milestone Birthdays

Over the weekend my family and I traveled to Lethbridge to celebrate my brother's 40th and my dad's 60th birthdays.  With them each celebrating milestone birthdays this year we decided to mark the occasion by all staying in a nice bed and breakfast together and going out for dinner at Ric's Grill, the popular restaurant in the former water tower.

My brother and his wife, my mom, dad, and me all drove out to Lethbridge on Saturday to meet up with my sister and her boyfriend at the Galaxy Bowling Alley.  I don't think I've bowled sober since high school, which is another way of saying that my skills at the game were almost non-existent.  I still stand by the fact that I think my bowling ball was cursed, but I suppose I shouldn't have expected my professional status on Wii bowling to transfer over to the real thing.

Both my dad and brother seemed to regain their bowling skills after a few frames, although they both woke up with bowling pains the next morning so I'm not sure it was worth it.  It was a fun way to spend the afternoon, but I doubt any of us will be qualifying for a bowling league any time soon.

From there we headed to the bed and breakfast, which was a giant house with more than enough room for all of us.  In the basement there was a giant snooker table and shuffle board.  Those were a lot of fun too.

After that we headed to Ric's Grill for the evening.  The ambiance was really nice and the food was excellent.  There wasn't exactly a whole lot to see despite our great vantage point, but I suppose you'd get a better view during the day.  In any case, we closed out our meal with a request for the piano player to play Just the Way You Are by Billy Joel. It was a nice moment and my mom really enjoyed it. Oh, moms. 

Back at the B&B we played a few games, exchanged cards, and my sister surprised my dad and brother with a Scrabble themed birthday cake.  My dad is an avid Scrabble fan so it was quite fitting.  We joked around a bit more before all heading off to bed.

The short trip was a relatively low key, but all around fitting family gathering.  We created some new memories,  shared a lot of laughs, and were back home before we got too sick of each other.  That, my friends, is how you celebrate milestone birthdays with your family!