Birthday of the Week - #1

Monday October 24th was the 46th celebration of the day of my birth.

46.

That means I'm closer to 50 than I am to 40.  Ouch.

But rather than dwell on the ever-encroaching agedness of their father & husband, my family feted me lovingly, and brought up my decrepit state sparingly, and always with humor.

Before I even made it home in the afternoon for my evening of celebration, Jenny, a volunteer at our church office, made me a plateful of these delightful and oh-so-decadent cupcakes.

Those are microphones, for those of you of a less than creative bent.  There really was a plateful.  My colleagues and I ate them.

After a fabulous dinner of homemade pizza (mangia, mangia!), the gift presentation began.

Anya gave me a coffee cup that she made in her ceramics class.  Perfect for enjoying a cup of dark, morning java.  And she drew a sweet, wonderful picture of the two of us.

Next, Jenna designed and wrote a love-filled card, and designed some very festive, colorful bookmarks.  They're ingenious!  I love them, and am amazed at her eternal fount of artistic creativity.  She also gave me half a dozen cakebites from the Sweet Tooth Fairy.  Cakebites are sort of like petit fours, but made from the most dense, moist cake that's ever passed my lips, in delightful flavors like lemon, double fudge, salted caramel, and peanut butter fudge.  I don't know what that fairy puts in them, but whatever it is, it's definitely magical.

Before I reveal Emily's gift, I must preface it with a story.

About 1/2 mile south of our house, at a very busy intersection, is a blanket and sock store.  (Why the combination of blankets and socks? A mystery.  Because they're both warm?  Both fuzzy?  Because no one will forget such an odd pairing -- pairing, get it, like socks? -- and of course go to this former 7-11 now converted to the blanket/sock store?  I give up trying to understand it.)  In the parking lot of this odd little market are huge furry blankets hanging on display, probably 20-25 of them on any given day.  Odd things are on these blankets: Marilyn Monroe, wolves, Betty Boop, a Marine emblem, puppies.  But there was one that caught our eye every time we passed -- the Dora the Explorer blanket.  It doesn't look exactly like this, but it's in this general vicinity.

For the past month, I've told the girls that I hoped against hope that I would find that Dora blanket when I opened my birthday presents.  We joked about it every time we passed the intersection.

Even on my way home, as Em & Jen were riding with me, we passed the intersection and I said that I could hardly wait to get home and open my Dora blanket and wrap up in it.

So imagine my surprise when I opened my gift from Emily and discovered this.

She found some Dora fabric and fashioned me a mini-blanket.

I love it.  As I told her, it's perfect for when my big toe gets cold.  Or if I want to warm one hand at a time.  Em & Jen said it would make a great handkerchief to poke out of my suit pocket at weddings and funerals.  We had a great laugh over it.  And still do.  It stays in the living room so I can snuggle up with it while I watch TV.

She also got me a half dozen of those ridiculously tasty cake bites.  How does that fairy get all that goodness in those tiny packages?

We ended the evening with a trip to one of my favorite spots, Color Me Mine.  Each of us designed a painted a ceramic piece to commemorate the day of my birth.  Or actually, just to use and enjoy.

Dad begins his creative effort

Let those juices flow!

A mug for each of us

Perfect for holding popcorn

Deep in concentration

When Anya finishes anything, it's time to read.

And even Karen made one.  She's often resistant to these artsy endeavors.  But she jumped in with gusto this time.  Although you won't know that by these pictures, because she was always behind the camera.  But that's her cup above, 2nd from the left, next to the popcorn.

She really did make it though.

And the projects in all their finished glory!

Suh-weet!

The Dad's cup

I love my family.

A lovely fall hike

On a recent fall day, Karen and I jettisoned our children and headed up to Sundance to hike to the always-beautiful Stewart Falls.

It was a perfect day.

That little strip of white in the distance in the center of the pic, that's where we're headed.

The leaves were turning, the air was crisp, but not cold.

 Karen channeled her inner artist.

 That's me saying, "What are you doing?  The tree will be in the way."  I'm such a philistine.

Once we reached our destination, we dined on juicy apples, granola bars, crackers & cheese, and of course, the staple of every hike: goldfish. (The Pepperidge Farm kind, not the swimmy kind)

In all our eight years here, and multiple hikes to these falls, we'd never climbed up above the lower portion of the falls to see the pool just above and stand beneath the upper falls.  So this time we trekked on up there.

This is looking down on the lower falls.

 All of it B-E-A-you-tee-ful!

Those silly grins on our faces?  You might think it's simply because we're in this gorgeous place, each of us with our favorite person to share it with.  And that's part of it.

The other part is the blessed absence of any one of our three girls asking, "Why are we doing this?"  or, "Can we head back now?" or, "It's water and rocks.  I've pretty much seen it.  Moving on."

Sorry, girls.  I know you're reading this and are putting your hand on your hip and saying, "Dad!" right now.

We love our girls.  I mean it, really love them.  But we only like to hike with them when there are other families around.  It somehow distracts them.  Hiking with other children is the only way they really enjoy a hike.  With us, they merely tolerate it.

So this fabulous fall day really was perfect.  Just with my wife.

Yumminess

To be clear:  there's not a whole lot in this post, save some delicious food.

I'm posting in response to a desperate request from Jamie.  You see, on her blog, she has a blog roll that shows blogs she follows, and mine is there, which is usually just dandy.  But given the content of my last blog, Jamie could not take another millisecond of my buggy infestation being highlighted on her blog page.  And she commented on that post with her request:

"Totally nasty. Ick. Gross. Nasty. Please write another blog post soon so that this one disappears from the top of my blog roll for your blog, continually reminding me of the blech."

With such understated subtlety, I felt it appropriate to post anew, so that my offending blog post would no longer give her, or others, the heebie jeebies.

Which brings us to the joyous delights of this post.

No bugs.  Only luscious culinary delights.

First a glimpse of some of the fabulous strawberries we enjoyed earlier this summer. 

Thanks to my father-in-law's careful weeding and toiling last spring, and copious watering by my farming wife, we harvested a bounty of berries and enjoyed them immensely.

Another great passion of late in Smithereens land is bruschetta.  We bought a basil plant, and regularly pick its fragrant leaves, mix them with fresh tomatoes and garlic, gently arrange the delightful combo on olive oil-brushed broiled bread slices, drizzle with balsamic vinegar...and moan with joy at the party in our mouth.

It is fabulous beyond description.

And just recently, we received a box of peaches from our oh-so-wonderful farmer friend who works the field and orchard behind our house.  He likes us and we like him.  He uses our water occasionally, and he lets us eat his bounty occasionally in return.

He dropped of this behemoth box of peaches the other day. 

Wow.

Some of them are like peach globes.

Look at that beast.  Barely fits in her hand.

And they are succulent.  Suc-cu-LENT, I tell you.

Too bad they don't make blogs with a taste-o-rama feature.  If they did, you'd be deliriously happy right now.

That's all.


Better, Jamie?