Broken Promise

Man - is it ever hard to blog in the summer! I am going to go back - way back to the month of May. I had a rather big birthday that month and I will admit right off it was the best birthday ever! Charles surprised me with a plane ticket to spend a week in Minnesota with my family and friends! It was awesome. I stayed at my sister Sara's and had a great time. I played many games of Sorry! with Ava. She is one tough competitor! She has a hard time losing - I think she gets that from her mother.



The lilacs were in bloom and when we were on walks I would pick small branches off the bushes as we walked by and inhale all the way home. I haven't seen lilacs in New Jersey and I miss them. The O'Rourkes also made me a delicious birthday cake. Luke and Ava put on the sprinkles. Fortunately they left the candles off!



My mom and my sisters took me out for supper at my all-time favorite restaurant - Maggianos.



Maggianos was in on the fact that it was my birthday and brought out little lemon cookies with candles at the end of our feast.



From Maggianos we walked over to the Cheesecake Factory and picked up cheesecake for after...Phantom of the Opera!



They had tickets to the performance that night and it was excellent! Sara almost lost her camera taking the above picture. Photography in not allowed in the Orpheium Theater evidently... After the opera, we went back to Sara's and indulged on our cheesecake. Sorry I don't have pictures of the cheesecake. It was a perfect evening!

That week I had a wonderful time meeting up with special friends and going out for many lunches and suppers. I am surprises I fit into my plane seat on the ride back without a seat belt extension.

I got many wonderful gifts for my birthday as well. These pictures are in no particular order.

I received this beautiful quilt from my friend Tonya. I love it! I keep it in the living room and often use it to curl up in when I am reading. The colors are absolutely perfect.



Next I have pictured a very handy and thoughtful item I received from Maddie. She knew exactly what I needed to clean up the frequent messes in our house.



Now here is an item that obviously every 40 year old needs - a headlight. It must be obvious because I received 2 of them! I keep one in my nightstand beside my bed and the other is in our camper and is handy for reading in my sleeping bag when everyone else is asleep or a run to the bathroom during the night. It is especially handy when we get to our campground later than we had planned and have to put up our camper in the dark. My hands are free to work! How thoughtful!



This little glass item is quite a treasure to me. It is from my friend Krissy and has a unique story. Sunday morning on May 25th, 2008, Krissy and I were having a conversation at church. She had a nifty set of blueglass bottles she received from her mother-in-law. She wasn't exactly crazy about them and was going to redecorate and they weren't going to fit into her new color schemes. That morning she mentioned that she needed to get those bottles over to me. She had offered them to me because I had a small collection of them myself. That afternoon we were hosting a church picnic at our house. About the time people were due to arrive, bad weather began rolling in - very bad weather actually. Krissy's entire house was blown away by a tornado which hit Hugo that day. This little glass bottle was found among the rubble of their house complete and perfect.



Now here is a gift the I have used and abused in the last two months - a new beach bag! My good friend, Ellen, here at Ft. Dix, saw the sorry state of my previous beach bag and was with me when my keys and other important items leaked out the bottom. We are regulars together with our kids at the pool and the Jersey shore.



The birthday wouldn't have been complete without the perfect shirt from my friend Carol!