We Were Gonna Plan a Party...But Then We Got Robbed

My brother celebrated a very special birthday recently, and I, of course, wanted to make sure he had a good time! Then we got burglarized and that put a bit of a damper on our spirits. Nevertheless, I just forewarned my brother that oh, there might be a few things missing when he comes down for the weekend. ;) Hey, we may not have any electronics anymore, but we still have board games and booze! Sadly, the burglary and resulting consequences really threw our life out of whack, so we didn't have as much preparation time before my brother came down for the weekend.  Now enter a bad rendition of Afroman's "Because I Got High" as we explained to my brother, "we were gonna bake you a cake...but then we got robbed." "Because I Got Robbed" unofficially became the weekend's theme song. There was so much more we had wanted to do, but hopefully, my brother understands that these are somewhat extreme circumstances. :-P

We still wanted to have a fun time though, so we started off by taking him to Senate for an early lunch of some amazingly awesome hot dogs. My brother ended up getting the Trailer Park dog, which is a bacon wrapped beef hot dog, american cheese, coleslaw, crushed BBQ Grippos (a local brand of potato chips), and a brioche bun. His hot dog ended up looking so amazing we even tried to replicate it at home for Memorial Day weekend.

Since we hadn't had time to bake a cake, we stopped at BonBonerie to pick up a selection of delicious treats.  They make some of the most delicious local pastries that I've tasted, and their Salted Caramel Cupcake is to die for.

Finally, after a little bit of downtime for digesting, we decided to go to Margaritaville at the Horseshoe Casino downtown.

I started with a margarita flight, and I made sure my brother also got a house margarita. For whatever reason, this boy has like no alcohol tolerance, so one beer and one margarita down and he was toasted.

The food itself was pretty unremarkable - overpriced and a little bland, but eh, that's pretty much what I expect from a place like this where it's more about the ambiance and experience rather than gourmet dining. It's a great place to go to celebrate a special occasion!

After tasty margaritas, we spent a bit of time walking the floor and putting a few dollars in machines. Didn't win anything, but it was my brother's first trip to the casino, so I think he was just glad for the experience.

Back at home, we toasted to my brother and whipped up some moonshine concoctions while we played a few games together.

And we sampled some of the Japanese Kit-Kat flavors that came in the variety pack I got my brother as part of his birthday present.

I'm still a bit disappointed in how things ended up coming together because I'd hoped to do this weekend bigger, but I think we all still had fun anyways!