Happy Birthday to the ancient old dragon, drake57! May you have many more!
Tag: birthday
Steph’s Birthday
Yesterday was hergrace‘s birthday, so we celebrated in grand style. But before we got into all of that, we had a whole day to experience.
Once again, we had a nice leisurely start to the day. And eventually we headed off on our 4 mile walk to Baba A Louis bakery, Chester town proper, and back to the farmhouse. At Baba A Lou’s we got some baked goods (surprise surprise!) I picked up a loaf of sour dough bread and a cheese & herb croissant. And as we rested outside of the Cathedral of Bread (well, that’s what the place looked like) we all ate our croissants.
We headed into Chester’s downtown in order to have the walk back be at a less steep incline than our walk to the bakery. The town is very quaint and quiet. We popped into a couple of stores, but didn’t buy anything. We also checked out a small suspension bridge near the downtown and walked across. Then on to the town’s cemetery for some perusal of very old headstones (some 18th century ones).
We then returned to the farmhouse, stopping only at Lisai’s market to get some bottled water. When we returned, we all crashed and felt good about getting out on such a lovely walk. The weather was simply perfect for the walk – not hot or cold, not too sunny or too dreary. A very lovely day.
The afternoon was spent geeking and reading and relaxing. And eventually the plans were afoot for supper. Steph’s father-in-law was going to grill steaks, elsaf would bake potatoes and make the salad, and all of us would eat well. Steph’s mother-in-law decorated the dining room in 4th of July party favors and decorations. And with pinwheels at every seat, we had plenty to keep ourselves entertained while we ate our wonderful supper.
Once the supper dishes were cleared up, the birthday cake was brought it. The birthday cake, made on Dairy Day Monday, was an Elsa-made cheesecake. Yummy! She also made a strawberry sauce for those who aren’t cheesecake purists like I am.
After desert was present time. Steph got lots of lovely gifts from her family and friends. Including several Doctor Who toys. Woohoo! The party eventually ended and folks started heading off to bed.
The girls and I stayed up to watch The Last September, a David Tennant movie that judiang gave Steph for her b-day. The movie was a bit hard to comprehend with all the people being introduced without proper introductions. And DT had a big furry caterpillar on his upper lip. So to keep the squee going, Steph put part 2 of Blackpool on for watching.
Rather than staying up til 2am, we actually filed out at fairly decent times. Elsa left at midnight, followed by me at midnight thirty and finally Judi ordered Steph to bed at one.
Today is Independence Day and our only real plans are to visit a local glass blower and watch them make beautiful glassware. Hopefully we’ll get to see some fireworks tonight too!
We’ve had some very sunny days here.
The folks in Vermont call this a creek, but I know it’s a “crick.”
More mountains (Vermont has a bunch!)
I can tell a train has been here. I can see its tracks!
Lots of scenery on the walk.
A scarecrow! I wonder if he’ll come to life & attack us!
Baba A Louis – the Cathedral of Bread!
Foxglove flowers outside of the Cathedral of Bread.
Pink flowers outside of the Cathedral of Bread.
Steph’s birthday!
Present Squee!
Happy Birthday, Steph!
Happy Birthday, Linus & Lucy!
Although no one is really sure what day Linus & Lucy were born, the vet and I made the decision that June 15th would be their official birthdate. So that means today, my babies are one year old! Wow! The time sure flew!
To celebrate, I bought them cat food today. Heh. I’ll be mixing it with their kitten food until they get used to the new food. They’re currently playing with trash in the living room. I give ’em toys, they prefer to empty out the trash can. Go figure. (Not the kitchen trash, thankfully, just some plastic from my recently purchased Doctor Who toys.)
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| Linus checks out the flowerbox
Linus is in the den looking out at that flowerbox. |
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| Does this bed make me look fat?
Seriously, Lucy isn’t that tubby! |
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| Lucy checks out the flowerbox
Lucy looks out over the flowerbox from the dining room. |
The Feast of Elsa
Wow, it’s always wonderful when I get together with elsaf & judiang (and sometimes hergrace can join us too). We know how to celebrate the joy of FOOD.
We started out the day slow. Elsa was up first, then me. I played CoH for a bit (on Judi’s PC) and then worked on my LJ post. While I was finishing that up, Judi showed up. Wow – Judi was awake and we didn’t have to get her up! We then got ready and headed up to the penthouse to exercise for the second day. I played with the two bikes and the elliptical trainer. Shame the regular bike has a dead battery cuz it would be neat to try some of the settings.
After exercising, Judi was still nearly comatose, but we promised her latte after brunch. Elsa drove us to Chinatown to our regular Dim Sum place, Three Happiness. Once again, Elsa showed enormous restraint, sticking to steamed dishes (and having the smaller half of one of my sesame rolls). We still ate well, despite the conscience eye on avoiding excess. The little steamed items are SOOOOO GOOOOOOOD. And damn, but those sesame balls are wonderful. Judi got 3 more right before we had stuff tallied up and took 2 home with her.
Elsa then drove us to Target where we found a few essentials (and Judi and I magically caused a Starbucks to suddenly appear so that she could get her hazelnut soy latte), and then to Dominick’s (which I haven’t been too since that fateful day when Judi made alryssa, tiger5 and I walk across the Long Ass Bridge the night before Thanksgiving. I can still hear Carole saying “I’ll pay for a cab! I’ll pay for a cab!” the whole way there & back, with Judi completely oblivious. Heh heh.) Dominick’s thankfully had the phyllo dough that Elsa needed for one of her dishes for the evening meal. Oh, and I picked up 3 bottles of white wine for Judi. A Chapel Ste. Michele (sp) Riesling, Turning Leaf Pinot Grigio, and Fetzer Gewürztraminer (my mom’s favorite). We put the Riesling in the fridge when we got back, but the other two are now on Judi’s new wine rack (one of her “garage sale” purchases of the day before).
The rest of the day has been spent with Elsa furiously making Yet Another Ultimate Judi Birthday Supper and me cleaning dishes. And once again, Elsa has topped herself. She truly rocks.
While light classical music played on Judi’s TV (digital cable, you know), dinner started with an appetizer of grilled shrimp with pineapple salsa. The soup course was next with the mushroom soup (with sherry) which she’s made before and which I love. For salad, she had arugula with a lemon vinaigrette and goat cheese souffle in phyllo cups. There was a small break while I cleaned a few more dishes and the lamb rested after being removed from the oven. Then we continued with rack of lamb with mushroom sauce (morels – yummy), asparagus, and rice pilaf with brown & wild rice and wine soaked cranberries. Very tasty. By now we were nicely full from a fabulous meal. It was time to open presents.
Judi got nice sheets and a mini food chopper from Elsa and noise-cancellation headphones from me. Oh, and a photo of David Tennant for her to squee at. I’d also scanned in the other DT photos that I recently bought in an eBay auction and gave her a CD of that. (The things I buy when I’m shopping for Sylvester McCoy photos!)
After present opening, I vegged for a bit and finally got the strength to finish cleaning the kitchen. But before I was done, we messed up my table again in order to eat CHEESECAKE. Yup, Elsa once again made her wonderful cheesecake. Very yummy. Judi had the biggest piece of the three of us, and then proceeded to have a sliver more. But hey, it’s her birthday and if you can’t live it up on your birthday, when can you?
Dessert over, I was able to finish cleaning the kitchen, and now I’m here, dishpan hands typing this entry. Believe me, it was worth all the cleaning. 🙂
ETA: that bit about Starbucks – just remembered it. Heh.
Happy Birthday Shebit!
A big Happy Birthday to the other April Fool in my flist, the lovely shebit! Hope you have a wonderful day!
Happy Birthday to Me!
Well, after welcoming in the new year, eventually judiang and I got off to bed. I shut the kitties in with me to allow Judi to get some sleep, but that meant that Linus (I swear, someone must have let him drink something caffeinated!) ran around in my room keeping me & Lucy up rather than keeping Judi up. He settled down sometime after 2:30am and we all fell asleep.
Around 6:30am, I let the kitties out in case they wanted breakfast or to do their business. Linus bugged Judi a little, but then he returned to me and we all fell asleep again. I got up sometime after 9am and made my way next door on the rumor that there would be cinnamon rolls there. The rumor was right!
As folks slowly made their way into M&D’s kitchen, we put HDTV on to watch the making of Rose Parade special and then the parade itself. I peeled potatoes for mashed taters while I watched. I wasn’t worried about missing too much of the parade since my computer was supposedly recording it. But an investigation around noon showed that my computer had just recently rebooted. Crap! So I’ve no idea how much of the parade that I have. I’ll make a DVD for watching later.
Mom had invited her brothers and their families for New Year’s Day lunch (pork and kraut, an Anderson family tradition). But before folks were to arrive, I had to feed Judi and then drive her off to the airport. In fact, we had just finished lunch (first lunch for me) as Aunt Madeline and Uncle Bob arrived. We said our hullos and good byes and I took Judi off to Dayton International. Seeing as she’s currently on IRC, I think she got home OK. 🙂
I returned home and it was still just Madeline and Bob. They were starting on desert, so I started on second lunch. It was just as good as first lunch was. Pork, kraut, mashed taters, and biscuits. Yum!
We decided to teach Madeline how to play Apples to Apples while Bob went upstairs to watch football (or was it sleep through football?) It turns out Madeline has a gift for Apples to Apples. She quickly made her way to the lead. I eventually caught up with her, but she won out in the end. It was during the last couple of rounds that Uncle Doug showed up. Then his wife, Aunt Charlene, and daughter Patty arrived as well. They had 2 of Charlene’s grand-nieces with her. They were fascinated by Apples to Apples and we promised to play it with them after awhile.
Despite mom having a nice new dining room table that could seat 10+ folks, people congregated in the kitchen. It was rather funny. But eventually we congregated in the dining room to play Apples to Apples again. Mom and Madeline decided not to join in, but Patty, Halie (the younger niece), and Uncles Bob & Doug agreed to join in. Some of the funniest table-talk took place in this game. But Halie (with a little help from her sister Sarah and from Rachel) quietly took the lead and eventually got the win. Meanwhile, I only got 1 card in this game. Alas!
The family headed out a little after 6pm and then Amy began making my birthday cake. She had the inspired idea of making cupcakes because they would cool faster and then people could decide whether or not to put icing on and how they wanted to decorate.
After the evening news, we put mom’s new copy of Ice Age 2 on and watched that. With a break first for folks to get supper. And then a break near the end for Rachel & Amy to bring in my birthday cupcakes. They had iced 5 of ’em and put “T” “R” “I” “N” and “A” on them. Then put sparkling candles on ’em for decoration. Despite the best efforts of the three of us, the candles refused to go out until we were nearly passed out from trying. It was quite a hoot. I had the “I” (cuz “I” was having a birthday today) while Rachel took the “R” and Amy took the “A.” Dad had a blank one and mom decided to wait.
After the movie was done, we had ice cream and (for some of us) cupcakes again. We watched Two and a Half Men (which mom and dad watch regularly). And when it was over, I opened my presents.
elsaf got me Volume 3 of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection – yay! Wile E Coyote & catapults! Plus lots of other great cartoons! Judi got me the CD version of Monty Python: The Final Rip Off, which I am currently listening to. Thank you ladies! M&D got me some cash which I might get to spend tomorrow during our shopping spree. And A&R got me The Complete Monty Python’s Flying Circus Megaset. Yay! Plenty of Python and silliness to last me for some time!
So, now I’m 36. Hmmm… So far doesn’t feel any different from 35. 🙂
Happy Birthday, Phlege!
A big Happy Birthday (now probably belated) to phlegethon_vii!
I was looking around my extensive photo collection for something Sylvish, and found this odd little gem. Hope it gives you some joy. It certainly tickles me. Silly man!
Sylvester McCoy and his Amazing Rubber Face! I wish I knew where I found this one. Blame must be apportioned. 🙂
Happy Birthday, Elsa!
Today marks the birthday of my oldest Internet Friend, elsaf. Happy birthday, Elsa! It’s been great fun being friends with you all these years (going on 11 now) and I hope for many more to come!
Um, I promise to get your birthday present off to you toot sweet!
Happy Birthday!
A big Happy Birthday to gordon_r_d! Hope you have a great day!