A Not Birthday Party

A friend of mine recently hit a milestone birthday.  We decided that the group of us friends should go out to celebrate her birthday.  She informed us that it wasn't for her birthday and it should be for all of our birthdays.  So it affectionately became called NRB (not (her first name)'s birthday).  So we emailed all the gals and found a date and time that worked for everyone and that was last night.

So last night we went to a somewhat local Mexican restaurant and enjoyed our food and visiting.  Then we decided to have a little dessert (we shared fried ice cream).  We had been lingering at our table and didn't realize the large amount of people waiting to be seated, so we quickly left our table and decided to continue our evening elsewhere.  We spent probably another hour there, discussing a myriad of things (even I was amazed at the variety of things we discussed) and arrived home in time for the 10:00 news.

We need to do this more often.  It was so nice to just visit and laugh and not be in the middle of doing something while we were visiting.  We decided that we need to bring our husbands next time too and go a fancier restaurant.  That was they can't wiggle out of going (and it would be nice to do this again).  We never make time and we are all busy raising kids from preschool to college, doing our jobs, running businesses and get caught up in the daily busyness.

Thanks gals and you know who you are.  Yes I have pictures and no I won't post them anywhere.

Easter Weekend

Way back last August, my dad turned 70 years old. We had planned to celebrate it then, but with 4 adult daughters, all married and 7 grandkids, scheduling a time for all of us to get together gets a little hairy. Time passed and various parts of the family were busy, so finally in January, we tried again to schedule a time to get together. We determined that Easter weekend was the next time we could all get together.

Saturday morning we gathered at my sister's house in Yankton and her friend who lives nearby took family pictures. I can't wait to see them! She did the whole group, the grankids, the daughters, my parents, the couples, etc. She was done in 45 minutes! She is amazing!! Looking forward to seeing those as soon as possible.

We grabbed a bite to eat back at my sister's house. Another sister loves making and decorating cakes and really outdid herself.

It is a white chocolate cake, that she made into a torte with strawberry jam. Since we celebrated the birthday so late, so made a slight adjustment to the number on top. That is 70.5 if you can't make it out.

Then we loaded into vehicles with walkie talkies and drove to see where my dad and my grandparents lived growing up. We saw the country school my dad attending in the late 1940s and the house that my grandma grew up in. Amazingly, the house is still standing remarkably straight and incredibly intact for being at least 90 years old and probably older. My grandmother was born in 1919 and she is the third of four kids. The oldest would have been something like 97 years old this year if she were still living. The only remaining sibling turns 93 this summer.

When we were finished, we stopped at my folks for a quick snack and roadtripped to Red Lobster. This is where my dad wanted to go, so all 17 of us went and stuffed ourselves.

We went back to my folks and sisters' place to sleep and then attended church services and then dinner at my folks that afternoon. Unfortunately, my camera died and I didn't get any pictures of the rest of the day.