Party weekend for Brutons...

This weekend the Bruton family headed back down to Birmingham early Friday afternoon to celebrate a family party. Actually two parties in one, as it was Molly's cousin Helen's 21st birthday and her uncle David and auntie Sharon's 25th wedding anniversary (plus auntie Sharon's birthday). We got to cheapy hotel with enough time to get showered and changed and then out to big swanky hotel for the happy occasion. Much fun was had by all, but especially Molly, who was resplendent with her beautifully grown up straightened hair and even a party dress (and Molly only does dresses for the most important people).

Louise and I discovered how very difficult using hair straighteners are after one of our Pocklington friends lent us a pair on Friday morning. It took both of us and a lot of patience in the hotel room on Friday evening to get Molly's hair to her high standards. But we think we did an okay job.....



And here's a couple of shots of the folks involved; first my rather crappy photo of Molly with Auntie Sharon and Uncle David:



And here's the 21st birthday girl herself and even though she obviously forgot to put the anti-red eye on, I think Molly's taken a fine photo here:



And finally for the pictures of the night, one of Molly with slightly younger cousin Rachel. Who makes me feel old every time I see her, since my first memories of her are as this angelic little toddler with an unfailing ability to embarrass my early 20s self. Rachel took this and it's obviously a young people's skill; the My Space / Facebook self photo. Because every time I try to take a nice photo of Molly and me with the camera at arm's length I never get the composition looking this good!



After getting back to the hotel to get a night's sleep in at half one in the morning, we still managed to get up early Saturday and headed into Birmingham and the best kept secret of the weekend. I left Molly and Louise as they headed to meet friends over in Bournville. Off the bus and the news that she's finally off to Cadburyland has Molly speechless with excitement.



We'll be eating chocolate for weeks to come. But it was everything Molly hoped it would be. Despite having lived in Birmingham for all those years, it's always been one of those things we really wanted to do, but just somehow never got around to when we actually lived in Birmingham. An evening at friends, a sleepover for Molly and Louise and I headed to Birmingham to sit, drink and watch the beautiful (and not so beautiful, not too mention ridiculously under dressed) people drink too much and fall over.

And that was the weekend that was.