Happy Birthday Queen Elizabeth.

It's not really Queen Elizabeth's birthday. I apologize for the confusion but we did just celebrate the birthday of a very special lady in my life, my yiayia (grandma). Since I was little, my grandmom always had a shiny gold crown keychain dangling from her keys. My great aunt would call her Queen Elizabeth, as they'd take off in their car and go off to the casino to play at the slot machines all day...to then return home with full stomachs (from the buffet), stories to tell of how they lost each other, and of course empty purses ....(but smiles on their faces).

So, it was my Queen Elizabeth's 80th birthday recently. 80 years old....yikes. It's hard to believe that the strong woman who would chase us around the backyard as kids, as we sprayed her with the water hose, and stomped on her flowers....is 80 years old. My favorite roommate, who made the alligators under my bed go away, who clapped her hands at all of my living room performances, and who had a warm meal ready every day for us after school is 80 years old.

My strong lady, who is more excited for my wedding than I am, who loves David more than even I do (kidding, kinda!), who has helped in raising ALL of us, cradled us all, sang us her silly greek lullabies while bouncing us on her knee, and who has reprimanded us all one too many times than we'd like to remember (!) is 80 years old. 

We had cake, cupcakes, dance parties, and the birthday girl even let us fatbooth and pregobooth her, as she burst out in laughter at us, while trying to understand how a small phone could possibly take a photograph and make her look 6 months pregnant. She's my favorite. 

To the lady that loves her shiny gold coins and dessert : ) 

You are my favorite and I love you : ) 

Happy Birthday Yiayia xoxo