Micah's 20th Birthday

On Friday, Oct 10, Micah turned 20. Where have the years gone? This is Micah doing what he does most and loves most.. playing guitar. Here he is practicing his classical music for school.
He is a music major and seems to love it. He also works at Baskin Robbins to earn a little money. He is thankful for the job and likes getting paid but doesn't really like scooping ice cream all night. He almost always works till 10 p.m. and then has to clean up for about an hour so he gets home pretty late but he's a night owl and does fine with that.

On Friday a.m. Micah wanted me to make him some scrambled fried eggs with cheese, toast and o.j. for breakfast. So I got up and made it for him. He had that around 6:30 a.m. He has to leave for school at 7 a.m.

Nate decided not to work on Friday so he could come and celebrate with us and spend the day with Micah. Micah got home around noon and Nate got here about an hour later. Micah never works on Friday so that worked out well.

For their birthdays I let them choose their meal ahead of time and Micah chose turkey pot-pie. (vegetarian of course) He wanted to choose his dessert but I told him that is always a surprise. He complained that he wanted rhubarb pie. That he always has pie and that he didn't want cake or ice cream cake from Baskin Robbins. I told him I wouldn't do that.. I knew that wouldn't be special since he works there and has ice cream from there all the time. Then I told him that Nate was bringing the dessert from Napa. Micah thought, Napa? What is he bringing something from some fancy place up in Napa? He was stumped. Well, I have to drive about a half an hour to get to Marie Calendars. Their pies are the best and they have their pies on sale every October for about $6.00 each no matter what kind of pie you buy. I had already worked it out with Nate to bring the pies since he has a Marie Calendars about 5 minutes from his place. The surprise lasted until Nate got there, which was fine because it was on Micah's birthday. When Nate arrived Micah helped him unload his car and there were the pies in the trunk. Micah was very happy to find that he was going to have his yummy pie and told me as soon as I got home. I had been out shopping. I just smiled and told him, "I know what you like."

Micah was really hungry and had skipped lunch to eat an early birthday dinner. Bob went to work early so he could be home by 5 p.m. for dinner, which is early for us. Anyway, that is why all the pictures have the food half eaten. I just got the pot pie out of the oven and Micah wanted to eat.. but the pot pie needed to set about 20 minutes. So, he decided we would eat our pie and ice cream first, which we did. We put candles on the pie and lit them and sang, "Happy Birthday" first, to Micah's chagrin.


This is the rhubarb pie with the candles already blown out and the pie half eaten. By the time I remembered the pictures we had already done all that.


We also bought a blueberry pie because one pie just didn't seem like enough.

Then we ate the turkey pot pie. Everyone enjoyed it and Mom said, "Micah made a good choice. I enjoyed every bite."

Next Micah opened his presents. He only wanted two things.. both expensive. He wanted a Playstation III game system or a HD TV. We got him the TV since the day before he told me he was so busy with school he really didn't think he'd have that much time to play games and he thought the Playstation III would come down in price if he waited a while. This one was on sale at Best Buy and part of the deal was a $25.00 gift certificate.


Nate told us Micah really wanted this game. He said it was old now and would probably be about $20.00. So we checked it out and sure enough the game was $20 so we bought that with the gift certificate. Micah was really happy with his gifts.



Will sent Micah a new game for his birthday present. It is Agricola.

It is really complicated and no one's game is the same. You are farmers and you are trying to breed animals, grow crops and increase your family and end up with the most points. There are lots of cards that change the rules for each individual and that is what makes it so complicated. But it was fun to play even if it was really challenging. I find that these games are so different every time you play them that it's never boring.. but always challenging and hard to remember everything. We played the game four times over the weekend and Micah won the first game, Bob won the second game, Nate won the third game, and Nate won the fourth game. Notice who didn't win. I haven't figured out the secret yet.. obviously. Here we are playing the game.





We really miss Will but he is way to far away to come home much. He was in our thoughts a lot and we talked to him on the phone while we were playing the game. It is always nice to have all the family together.

Micah had his friends Zach and Michael over and Nate joined them playing Rock Band.

All in all it was a fun weekend for everyone. We even watched some football. :)

Tea for Two

Today Cathy and I went to lunch. She wanted to try a new place in town called Tea-Licious. Here is what it looks like on the outside:

The picture window:

Just inside the door: In front of the picture window

The scone table:
A close-up of the scones.. mmm.. they looked yummy!
The whole place was decorated so cute and each seating area was done differently. We just thought the whole place was adorable and the owner, who I should have photographed but didn't, was happy to know we were going to put our pictures on our blogs.
The table in the background has it's own little gazebo. The place looks barren but there were quite a few people there. I specifically tried not to take photographs of the people. I thought that would be rude. I was surprised how many men were there.



I had a cucumber, cream cheese, tomato, greens and red onion sandwich on multi-grain bread and a fresh fruit cup of apple, pear, and strawberries. We had peach herbal iced tea. It was all very good. We didn't have a scone but we just might have to go back sometime for one of those.


This is the party room. Cathy is thinking of having her birthday party here with her nearest and dearest. It sure was a cute room. They do children's parties too.




I got a picture of Cathy taking pictures.

A Nice Surprise

Yesterday morning I got mom up a bit later than normal. I had been going through boxes and was just really busy. The door bell rang and it was the UPS guy with a package for mom. I went upstairs and got her and brought her down in her p.j.'s, since we weren't going anywhere. I didn't even take much time on her hair. We got ready for breakfast then I remembered the package and gave it to her to open. I decided to take pictures even though we hadn't primped for them.


We read the card together and found out it was from Cecelia! Mom was so excited and couldn't believe that Cecelia had remembered her for her birthday.. but she had.

Cecelia mentioned how much she liked sitting by the fireplace with mom when she had been her caregiver. Here is the ol' fireplace with a makeover.

Mom opened one of the gifts..

..and found some cute, cuddly and warm slippers, which she promptly put on and wore for the rest of the day.

Then she opened the other box, trying not to tear the beautiful wrapping paper, as she unwrapped it.



This is what she found inside:

The cutest little ceramic blue bird. She loved it so much she brought it close to her mouth and gave it a little kiss.


Isn't it just the cutest?

She was so happy all day.. with her little blue bird on the table by her chair and her new slippers and lovely thoughts of her wonderful friend.

THANK YOU CECELIA!!!

Salvaged Antiques

Look at all the antique dishes, etc.. that they were able to salvage from my china cabinet!














Unfortunately the china cabinet was burned badly and the curved glass all broken.
But I am so happily surprised that all this turned out so well. A few of them don't look so great but most of them do! :)

Last Sunday

Last Sunday our Women's Ministries Group from our church held a Fall Progressive Dinner. Our first stop was Cathy Murphy's home.

Each home had some fall decorations. Cathy had purchased some artificial mini pumpkins and acorns from Kohls. They looked really nice.















Beverly Brownell made the appetizers for us even though she was unable to attend. They were delicious. Mainly we just stood and mingled. I can't believe I didn't get pictures of all the people. I got to each place a little early with mom and took pictures before most of the others got there. There were over 40 women who attended the dinner.






The next home was Teena De Sousa's. She looks happy doesn't she? I think I would have been pulling my hair out. She was actually moving over the weekend and had to be out by Sunday. She only had two hours sleep the night before. She's a real trooper.





Her decorations were nice too.

We had pumpkin soup made by Lillian Li and a tossed salad and cabbage salad by Anna Smith. There are a few early birds in the pictures.




This is Anna sitting at a table with mom. Her daughter Melany is sitting next to Anna at the next table.


Next stop was Lillian Li's home. This is the wreath on her door.




Here she is getting the cranberry sauce out of the refrigerator. We basically had a Thanksgiving dinner with acorn squash made by Linda Hazly, corn, shepherd's pie made by Iris Cathey, Ocean Spray cranberry sauce & Worthington vegetarian smoked turkey that I made, a pasta salad made by Beverly Purcell, and some raspberry herbal iced tea. There was bread, butter, tea, and water on the tables.


They have a beautiful home and her decorations were really pretty.









Our last stop was Evelyn Choate's home for dessert.










There was pumpkin pie and apple pie from Costco and chocolate pound cake and chocolate fudge torte made my Susan Higgins. I didn't try the all but I'm sure they all were yummy! We had hot drinks.. but it was so hot that day I don't believe anyone had any. Hiloko Komaki had brought the tea and decorated little sugar cubes with royal icing. I wish I'd have gotten a picture of them. They were really cute. I was outside with my feet dangling in the pool. Evelyn loves to garden and most people were outside where it was a little cooler and it was a beautiful evening.. just about sundown.



I thought her decorations were the cutest! I guess I still love dolls. :)

The dinner started at 4:00 p.m. and ended at 8:00. We all had a great time visting and eating. We had four visitors and a couple of our new members and one of our old members who are trying to be vegetarian asked me for the recipe for the turkey. They want to make it for Thanksgiving. So, I have ordered a couple of cases of it and will have them over to show them how to make it. I also met some really nice people that are not members of our church but are friends of those that attended. Mom and I both had a great time but mom was ready for bed when we got home. She said we ate way too much. Each house seemed like a meal for her.