One More Party

So the Melberg crew likes their family kids birthday parties.

• The three "S's"
• Mikayla and Mariah
• Wilson
• Marly & Dean
• Charlie

If a cousin's kid has a birthday, we gather.  

We eat barbecues, or Papa Murphy's Pizza, or grilled burgers. The menu really isn't important. We eat salads that include whip cream, or canned fruit, or vegetables, or taco chips. It doesn't matter. The counter or center island of the kitchen may host baked beans, a pan of bars, coffee and pop or lemonade. 

The kids play in the basement in the winter, and at the lake in the summer. Honostly, I have never checked what the kids are actually up to in the basement. The adults talk and catch up. Which kid? How old? Honestly, it doesn't matter.

Sometimes various family can attend. Sometimes the time and date doesn't work. It doesn't matter.

What matters?

• Extended family gathering, with each other.
• The only mandatory piece of  the party puzzle is a photo of the cousins' kids together by the cake or opening gifts.

Wilson, Dean, Marly, Ian and Viv Lyons and me holding Charlie

This is the third family birthday party we have hosted at this house. The menu varies little from year to year - Turkey sandwich meat cooked for 12 hours in the crock pot, a veggie salad, fish eye salad (with whipped, dry pudding mix, and canned fruit cocktail), another crock pot of baked beans, fresh berries sometimes, Costco Kirkland crinkle cut potato chips, pickles and olives, whatever delicious side dish Toot's brings (even though I never ask, but always hope!), and some years a pan of Special K bars from Laura.

Chocolate cake from Jack's Bakery in Brooklyn Park.

What I love most about Marly and Dean's Birthday is the simplistic annual reason to gather some of the Melberg's and some of the Toren's. My mom's side and my Dad's side, enjoying time together.

It isn't the kid, the year, the cake, or the presents that are important. The birthday itself is nothing more than a conduit to preserve the importance of FAMILY.

Thanks to those of you who joined us year.