I'll take 'Quotable Quotes' for $100 Alex...

Abraham Lincoln said:

"You may deceive all the people part of the time, and part of the people all the time, but not all the people all the time."

Only I'm going to replace the word 'deceive' with 'please'. So my version goes like this:

You may please all the people part of the time, and part of the people all the time, but not all the people all the time.

Why you might ask? Well, I need to keep reminding myself that I just can't please every one. Since I'm the eldest in my family I frequently plan family gatherings or events. The most recent one is a trip to Las Vegas to celebrate two people turning 40 in September, one turning 30 in September, one turning 21 in October and one turning 50 in November. Lots of milestone birthdays to celebrate in a short time period.

The 21-year old is none other than my little Beanie Boy. So he's bringing his girlfriend and Shmoo is bringing his girlfriend and I'm paying for two rooms. Which is significant not all to what I'm talking about but is on my mind a great deal as I budget for the Great American Birthday trip to Las Vegas. So on with the show and all that...

To give you an idea of the size of this crowd I call a family, here's a picture of us at my 50th birthday. That's a little more than half of us. We've had two marriages, one engagement, and 3 move-ins and 6 babies born since then. As a matter of fact, one of my nephew's is expecting his first baby that weekend and won't be able to attend even though his brother is the one turning 30. Our current head count which includes my Dad, siblings, spouses, nieces, nephews, their spouses and the great nieces and nephews totals 59 people.



(Click picture to see enlarged)

Anyway, 26 of us are going to be in Las Vegas to celebrate all the birthdays with yours truly doing the coordinating. All I can say is that it's a good thing I like lists. As you can imagine it's a nightmare trying to find rooms in one place that meet the criteria of the wide range in age and family needs, but I finally got a list of choices made up and sent out to everyone today.

Now I'm working on finding the right show and place to eat dinner when we go in early November. I'm leaning toward the Cirque du Soleil BEATLES:LOVE show which is at the Mirage. Has anybody out there seen it? We thought it would appeal to the broad spectrum of people attending from age 17 (Shmoo) to 76 (my Dad).

What about places to eat? Anybody know a place that's just to die for? My brother is all hotsy totsy to try the TAO Restaurant at the Venetian. It's Chinese and is just like the famous TAO restaurant in NYC.

This is a once in a life time sort of trip GG and I want to do for Beanie and it's great there will be other family members there with something to celebrate as well. We should all have lots of fun. Any help and suggestions are VERY welcome.

Trust me you'll be hearing more on this.