April 2012: Milestone Birthday Bash in Florida

In my family this year (my mom's side), there were four of us who had "milestone" or "decade" birthdays. My mom turned 60, my aunt Terri turned 50, my cousin Traci turned 40, and I turned 30. So instead of throwing 4 different big parties for all of us, we decided to gather up all the Simon Girls and head to Florida for a week to celebrate.

Of course with Birthdays, comes presents. We all had to bring presents for everyone for this birthday celebration...so here's what we got:

(Embroidered Beach Towels that had "pockets" on the top to put over your beach chair so they don't blow off...(brilliant); personalized beach bags for everyone; picture frames with us all together; and coffee mugs that have all of our pictures on them. Thanks to my cousins Gracie and Madi for being the models to show off the gifts that we got.

Oh...and incase you are wondering...here are the birthday girls!!! (I"m not a fan of swimsuit pictures, but honestly, we lived in our suits...so what's a girl to do?). From Left to Right....Abbie (Sweet 16), Me (30), Cousin Traci (40), Aunt Terri (50), my mom (60)!! Happy Birthday to us!!

So, you might ask...what does one do on a birthday trip to Florida? Well...the answer is that we do whatever the heck we want to!!! We play in the ocean...(Madi showing how it tastes...)

We lay in the sun....A LOT! (Evidently, we start kids off young for the love of the sun. Every single girl in my family has loved sun tanning and the pool/ocean since we were kids...perhaps it is because we spend much of our childhood doing just this...)

We be ourselves dorks because we can and our family accepts us that way!!...

We spend time with each other...and we actually really enjoy ourselves!!...

And we go big or go home...yes, that's right...we do everything together and typically that draws lots of attention to us (such as when we rented 2 cabanas and 12 beach chairs that all had our matching towels on them...people noticed:)

Oh yeah...and we eat!!!! Can't forget the eating!! It takes quite some planning and organizing to get 12 people to sit together and eat together at every restaurant that we go to...but we do it:) One of our nights...we ate at this great mexican restaurant!!

And of course...WE CELEBRATE!!!!! Our last night all together, we all got dressed up and went out to eat at a fancy-schmancy restaurant that was right on the beach. 

(Above picture...me and my mom; Below picture...me, Abbie and Kelsi)

And following our fancy-schmancy dinner...we decided since we were already dressed up, we would head over to the Ritz Carlton Hotel and pretend that we were fancy-schmancy kind of people...so we were served drinks on the balcony and decided we would put on our "Ritz" faces to prove that we can be fancy-schmancy if we want to! 

What an incredible 5 days spent with the Simon Ladies. We had an absolute blast. And despite some dramatic events that took place (a huge frog on the garage wall right outside our front door...a dead frog found less than a foot away from my head where I had been sleeping....sleeping on the horrible pull out bed with Kelsi...enduring just a little bit of sun poisoning (what can I say? I love the sun...)...and hearing a bazillion references of our situation being compared to the Hunger Games... I wouldn't have traded this trip for the world. In the words of my cousin Traci, "We laughed...we cried...but mostly we laughed until we cried". I am so blessed to have the family that I do who genuinely love to just be together. Happy Birthday to us! Thank you all for an incredible birthday trip!

Oh...one more thing...You will notice that little Miss Adelyn is not with me in any of these pictures, and that is because she stayed in Minnesota with Michael and her Grandma Carmack. The first thing people asked me when they found this out was, "Didn't you miss her?" Well...duh. of course I did. But did I live it up while I was free of any mommy-duties? You betchya! And did I feel guilty about that? Not one bit! But let me tell you...I sure did love up that little cutie when I returned home after being away from her for 5 days!