You look like a monkey, and you act like one too!!!!

If you have the pleasure of sharing your happy birthday with the White’s you will realize that it’s not only the birthday boy or girl acting like a monkey but in fact the entire family. Being part of the White’s means you are part of a long and ongoing birthday tradition which entails being woken up as early as Buddy has to go to work that day, and also includes the honor of sharing a table, that is usually not big enough for everyone, at Spur for your Birthday dinner.

When its your birthday in the White house you get woken up by a horribly off-tone version of Happy birthday, luckily you also still have sleep in you eyes so you miss the 1st half of us trying to be musicians. If you are not one of the live-in residents you can be sure to receive a phone call at the same early hour where everyone in the Brady bunch sings the tune over the phone to you from the bottom of their hearts before going about their own daily tasks again. But I love our “Happy birthday to you” ritual; I wouldn’t want to wake up on my birthday to anything else. Luckily for me my birthday is in December, but to the dismay of fellow camper’s staying next to us as they will also be woken up by the singing as nothing keeps us from our tradition.

But the singing is the least of your worries on your special day; you should rather ponder the fact of how many people will be coming to your birthday dinner. This is always held at Spur as they are so accommodating to their little spur tribe boys and girls who can jump and play while the rest of the grown ups go about their “lovely” dinner. Keep in mind that on a normal day our family consists of about 8 or so odd people, but with these events the extended family will usually join in, which entails our friends that have come to be part of our crazy family as well as boyfriends.

So when we arrive at Spur with 4 cars on a Sunday evening and ask for a table for 14 (which later ended up being 18) we just sigh when we see our waiter’s nametag “Africa”. Poor guy, as we all know – there is no time in Africa, and this demanding group will by offset (obviously to us) be too much for him to cope with. First it takes half an hour of debate to determine if we will sit in smoking or non-smoking, in the end we did smoking because we could all fit in on one table in that section. When I say one table I am not referring the tables normal restraints have for 14 people. No the White’s make a plan and we literally rearranged the smoking section in spur to accommodate all of us, to poor Africa, the horror. He just stood by as we moved tables and benches and rearranged half the place. We sure know how to take over!

So after having to ask for the wine list, straws for our drinks, side plates that were sent back because they were wet and what not, we tried to better the disaster. Africa wasn’t keeping up so we got them to give us another waiter which was also a futile exercise, at the end of the day the manager ended up serving us, high maintenance we really are!

Apart from these traditions you must remember that there are the 2 little ones, and little ones means kiddie’s parties, now here I have to give it to Moekie and Mich when it comes to creativity, no Woodhill mommies idea will be repeated at one of our parties!! We have done archeological diggings and boot camps for the boys, Winnie the Pooh parties, tea parties and this year a baking party for the girls… Recipe for Fun: White house kitchen, come prepared, we will provide you with a personalized potato printed apron (with your name). Method: mix together family and good friends, you might not have to walk the tight rope but act like a monkey in the end we guarantee you will.