Early Birthday Treat

A friend of mine recently introduced me to Cafepress.com by giving me a gift certificate for my upcoming birthday (in 2 weeks for those inquiring minds :)  It's a neat website that allows you to find plenty of personalized items that you can design yourself or browse other people's shops. 

Many of you know I have a thing about reusable shopping tote bags.  I found several that I liked including this one:

One of the other things that I was really interested in is their water bottles.  You can put your own photo or saying on them and truly make them yours!  I am thinking about creating some of these for Christmas presents for the family.  We're all trying to drink a lot more water and this might be just the thing to help us do that.  Wouldn't these be cool?

Well, I thought I'd share this with you and now I'm back to their site - http://www.cafepress.com to decide how I want to spend my lovely gift on ME!  Have a great rest of the weekend my friends.

Dad turns 70

Happy Birthday Daddy!

Anyone that's met my Dad knows that he is a no-fuss, no frills kind of guy. He's an old time, real cowboy (crotchety) that was born in the wrong century. He's also gruff with a tough exterior that hides a big marshmallow center. He is a supreme animal lover with that vibe that makes most animals instantly adore him. He would do anything for those of that he loves and is loved by many. He doesn't like technology and would be happy up on a ranch in the middle of nowhere with his animals and a few, select people (I'm right there with him on that part, but I do love some of the technology.)

Anyway, throwing a party for him is like pulling teeth. He didn't want one, threatened not to be there, said he'd disown me, etc. I, of course, threatened to disown him right back or handcuff him to the barn if he didn't let me have my way and have a celebration. I finally reached a compromise with him. Since we're still having sorting practices on Sundays at the ranch, I asked him if we could combine a BBQ in with the practice since many of the same people would be there anyway. He relented, still grumbling, but did say OK.

It was obviously a meant t0 be thing as the weather was PERFECT. We have never had perfect weather on Dad's birthday. It's always been cold, raining, foggy, etc. so we couldn't plan an outside party or anything out of town. It was a beautiful sunny day with lovely warm temperatures. Almost everyone I invited made it and the food was terrific (I'm not bragging on myself, lots of side dishes were brought by the 40+ guests, yum.) Daddy had a lot of fun once he relaxed and let himself enjoy all of the people there to celebrate his day with him. He topped it off by winning the sorting jackpot at the end of the day.

Although I was very pleased with the day, I was a dummy and didn't take any pictures. I'm hoping one of our friends will share her photos. So for now, these are some pix of Dad from my wedding last year and a few others. I love you Daddy, Happy 70th!

Weekend Recap

We had a really nice visit with Hubby's folks along with my Ant and my Mom's best friend. They were all here at different times so it was like a revolving door, but it was nice. Mom enjoyed all of the chaos for her birthday celebration. Dad actually came over for birthday lunch and breakfast the next morning. (Those of you that are familiar with Pops know that he is a bit of a hermit at times and likes to stay at the ranch.) I made Mom the spice cupcakes from Gramma's recipe and they were a hit as always.

We had a special guest in our yard for the celebration as well. This beautiful egret has decided we have a pretty good place to hang out. He spent quite a bit of time perched in the top of the tree by our gate.

I spent Saturday going through boxes in an effort to make room in the garage (for more boxes that we still have to get over here one of these days.) I was pretty tickled to find a lot of crafting goodies that I haven't seen in ages. They got packed away before Hubby moved in so it was a lot like Christmas. Hubby spent the day with Dad working on the fences and gates at the ranch.

Sunday was spent out at the ranch with Dad and cattle sorting again. Beautiful day to spend out in the fresh (country) air and sunshine.

I hope you all had a great weekend. I am working on a post about my decluttering strategies that I hope to have up later this week.

Our First Houseguests!

We're very happy to be welcoming the Hubby's Mom & Dad to our new home for a visit. They live in Arizona and we haven't seen them since July 4th. It's so nice to be able to share the new house with them as we didn't have room for guests in our old place (plus it was a pit so we would be mortified to even have anyone come in..)

It's doubly nice that they are up at this time because today is my Mom's 72nd birthday. We decided not to have a big shindig since she's not really up to it. So instead we're planning a nice lunch with cupcakes (remember the spice cake recipe here ?) and ice cream..yum. It'll be just close family with my Dad and my Ant Lola (another short aunt) also coming over. Beautiful day for a celebration and family visit!

(photo from our wedding which was also their 50th wedding anniversary! taken by Sara Deasy of DC Photography Studios)