Happy Birthday Chris

 This time of year is very busy with Birthday's in my family.  Mom's is in January, Pirate Cousin in February, and my older brother Chris, Emma and Army Man all in March.  It makes for lots of family gatherings close together.

So tonight we had dinner together to celebrate My Big Brother.  I won't mention how old he is because that would be admitting that I am old! But we did have an adventure finding a place for dinner.  We asked Chris where he wanted to go, and he decided he wanted to try the Macaroni Grill, as he had never been.  So me being worried about getting a table on a Friday night from a group of 10 decided to call and see if we could get a reservation. In trying to do this, I discovered that the restaurant had pulled out of Oregon.

 Following this discovery, I called My mother, who was planning this outing.  She  said she was sure it was still open by Clackamas, and that she and Dad would be over there that afternoon and would check.  She called back later to say it was open when they drove by.

So fast forward a few house, we all arrive at the restaurant, and it is closed.  There are lights on inside, but there are no people, tables or chairs! So here are 10 people in 4 cars at 7pm on a Friday night trying to figure out where to go next!

 So the next suggestion was Gustov's.  We all drive over there (just across the freeway) and have a very difficult time parking.  Someone went in and checked, and we were told they could not accommodate us for over an hour, if at all.
So, once again we all drive over together, this time to Kaiser across the street to discuss.  The Birthday Boy gets on his phone, and finds us a seating at The Old Spaghetti Factory, back across the freeway.  They had about a 30 minute wait, but that is not bad for our size group on a Friday Night.

 So we finally had dinner, and had a great time.  Emma loved sitting with Grandma and her cousins.  Pirate Cousin loved playing photographer with his new camera, and Army Man enjoyed dodging the camera.  So a typical night out with the Cawood Clan.