Birthday Girl!

Today is Nancy's birthday and for the last couple of weeks I have been planning a surprise birthday party for her. Because this birthday is a milestone sort of day, she was not particulary keen about even acknowledging the day, let alone having a surprise party, so it came as quite a shock for her. I won't mention exactly how old she is, but it is the square root of 3600. I contacted a bunch of our old friends and arranged a dinner at the El Adobe de San Juan Capistrano. Nancy thought we were meeting J.R. and Casey, and Adam and Jennifer there for a quiet dinner, but when she arrived she was greeted with a chorus of "Happy Birthday" by most of our dearest friends. We had a wonderful dinner and she was roasted/honored by comments from each of them during the meal. She was very pleased and enjoyed it immensely. At the end of the meal our servers had her don a sombrero for another chorus of "Happy Birthday". It created the perfect photo op. She's pretty cute for someone who is 8.5714 in dogs years.

Easter, San Clemente

On Easter Sunday we were lucky enough to have some of our children and grandkids join us for dinner and an Easter Egg hunt afterwards. Nancy prepared the traditional ham, but with a new sauce as well as a new version of honey yeast rolls, both of which were a hit with everyone. We had Adam, Bailey, Jennifer, J.R., Casey, Mackenzie, Kayla, Ethan and Casey's sister Amy and her two children Brendan and Erin join us for dinner. Nancy puchased about 75 plastic Easter eggs that had to be stuffed with various forms of chocolate, miniature candy bars and jelly beans, so I become the official egg stuffer for the afternoon. Adam, J.R. and I then hid the eggs and candy bars in the back yard for the kids to discover.

Earlier in the day, we attended our Easter services at church. We enjoyed some great talks and lessons at church. I even succumbed to my version of "Catholic Guilt" and sang in the choir. I did it for the Christmas program as well. The choir director invited me to sing with them on a regular basis, but I told her she had come to the well one too many times.