A Day at Home and We Celebrate a Birthday

We spent a lazy day at home today. Even though Mount Vernon is quite an urban community, Daughter MM's house is on a ridge. Their house is down a gravel road off of a culdesac in a wooded area. We have seen several does and fawns when we've been here previously, but this is the first time we've seen this very nice buck. His horns are still in velvet --

Tomorrow is Mary Mae's birthday, but since Scott will be at work tomorrow and GD Claire has rehearsal tomorrow evening, we decided we would celebrate today.  Scott barbecued steaks for dinner along with some little summer squash I had marinated in olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Scott and Claire had gone out earlier and gotten her a chocolate ice cream cake to go with.

MM's blender decided to go up in smoke this morning when she was making Dutch Babies for all of us, so it was easy for Scott to decide what to get her for her birthday. I gave her the silk scarf I had found for her at Pike Street Market.

After dinner we all watched Crocodile Dundee. It's been a long time since we had seen that movie and it was fun watching it with the Varick and Claire. I remembered the scene where the crocodile almost gets Sue and the one where Dundee walks across the top of the subway crowd, but had forgotten most of the rest of it. It certainly is a classic.

The Day After...

The day after Christmas is always such a funny day. It's sort of a let-down after all of the excitement and hype around Christmas. My late Sister-in-law Pearl's birthday was the 26th of December. We tried a couple of times to have a special celebration of her birthday, but it never seemed to quite gel.

My Sister Roxy's birthday is the 15th and our Daughter Dawn's is the 16th. Because they are before Christmas, it's easier to celebrate their birthdays. As a kid I was always a bit jealous of Roxy's big birthday presents as the folks often combined her birthday and Christmas presents in one. I discovered later in life that she often felt cheated as she only got one present - albeit a big one - instead of separate birthday and Christmas ones...

Today was a quiet day for us. I was in bed last night and asleep before ten PM, but I slept around the clock! I had gotten up once very early to visit the bathroom, but went right back to sleep. I can't believe I was that tired! My knees are still excruciatingly sore, so I have not been doing much moving around.

Forry got me an iPad for Christmas and I have been playing with all of the things that it can do. I've started playing "Words With Friends" which I am really enjoying. I had tried it before on my iPhone and didn't like it at all. The game on the iPad is big enough to easily see and I'm finding it much more fun. I've also been reading more books on the iPad than on my Kindle. It's a bit lighter and easier to use.

I did spend a little time on the computer this afternoon, getting some bookwork done and ordering some medications. We mostly ate leftovers today. We had pie for breakfast, then the last of the crab cocktail, and then ham sandwiches for supper. It was a good day.

Seafood and Beads!

Can't do much better then that! We had dinner at Anthony's Home Port in Kirkland with some friends and are now over at their house drooling over Bill's handmade, hand blown beads. Leslie was kind enough to give me a baggie to take some "samples." We got to Anthony's early enough to have their four course Sunset Dinner: shrimp cocktails; salad or clam chowder; Dungeness Crab salad (Leslie had salmon/shrimp and Bill had prawns) and creme brulee or Irish Cream chocolate mousse.

It's been an eventful weekend we spent celebrating MM's 50th birthday. Scott and I had spent a good share of the day cutting up steak, pineapple, peppers, onions, tomatoes, zucchini and mushrooms and threading them on skewers for the shish kabobs.

MM's sister Dawn and her family arrived just in time for the belly dancer. There were about thirty plus people there, about half of the them kids. Everyone brought a side dish, so we had lots of great food. (The belly dancer was an auction prize at the kid's school.)

We weren't too ambitious Monday morning, but eventually MM, Dawn and I went to the Mall with the three grandaughters. The initial premise was that Dawn was going to take MM shopping for an outfit for her birthday, but we all ended up getting something. I gave each of the girls a $20 bill, Dawn gave them a cell phone and we turned them loose. They had a ball, checking in every once in a while to have Mom check out a potential purchase.

Later the guys joined us with the grandsons and we took turns in groups going to see Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince (taking turns staying home with the youngest kids). It made for a pretty late evening, but I think we all had a good time!

During the night I got a bright idea and emailed Bill and Leslie to see if we could meet for lunch with them on our way home. We ended up deciding to meet them for dinner and then staying overnight at their place tonight.

Magnetic Resonance Imaging

Magnetic Resonance Imaging is NOT my favorite thing! I had an MRI two years ago that the doctor wanted to repeat to see how much change there had been in my back. They certainly haven't improved the experience, in fact, I think the machines have gotten louder! The tech said I wasn't imagining it, the more powerful the machines are, the noisier... It was a l-o-n-g 25 minutes this afternoon.

It will take at least two days for the MRI to be read by the radiologist, then I guess the surgeon will call to discuss what happens next.

Today our oldest daughter turned 50! I'm really not sure how that happened -- it hasn't been that long since MM was just a baby with the biggest blue eyes! We will head over to Mount Vernon sometime on Friday for the big party her husband has organized for Saturday afternoon (something about belly dancers?).

We talked with both of the girls and Sean today. Lots of bittersweet stories about Phyllis, lots of fun memories about our Flying Farmer days, and stories of time spent working for Vic.