My 35th Bday Party

OK, apologies to my dedicated (not decimated as the spellcheck put) readers who wait in eager anticipation for my next brilliant story, my next masterpiece…OK, OK, I hear ya, on with the story…



This last weekend, we celebrated my 35th birthday party. Yeah, I know it’s a few weeks early, but on the weekend closest to my birthday Rob will be taking me to Belgium for a romantic weekend. That will be a fun blog to write!!

I am definately getting a lot of experience being a hostess here, and a flash in the future to seeing kids of all ages! We had throughout the day 12 adults and 5 kids ranging from 1-7 years old. It was a wonderful experience having my new Dutch family-in-law over, and the friends I have made through Rob. I had further brilliant conversations with the 3 year old from Quinten’s party, Sven. He now calls me “Mevrouw Laurie” and we have a great time asking what color things are and the names of everyone in the room.



I can actually speak some Dutch now, thanks to my course. I am now having deep philosophical discussions on Plato and Aristotle in Dutch….no, actually, I never had those in English, let alone Dutch, but it did sound impressive. I can say more now than “my name is…I am from…” as long as people speak slowly to me, and I can respond back. I apparently have a very pronounced American accent in Dutch, but then as I am an American not too unexpected. I can compare experiences of life in US/Holland in Dutch, and speak of everyday life things.

Among my friends and family in the US, we usually go out to restaurants for birthday celebrations with a few friends and family. For larger ones like my Mom’s 70th birthday, we took a larger group to a restaurant, or rent banquet room for a party like for my Dad’s surprise 70th.

In Holland, as you read in my blog of Quinten’s bday, birthday parties are held in the house. This is true for adult parties as well as for kids parties. In a way, its kind of an open house for friends and family to drop by and celebrate. Instead of a set call time, people arrive anywhere from 3 PM to 10 PM for my party. You serve the cake as people arrive instead of at the end of the party. We did the happy birthday song at the start (a different one in Holland than in the US, so I have a new song to learn). Also different, as this is not a restaurant, the birthday host/hostess makes sure all the guests are fed and plied with cool beer, that all kids have mini-hotdogs and choco-melk…so I am now an experienced hostess.