MY LOVELY BIRTHDAY/MOTHER'S DAY DINNERI am

MY LOVELY BIRTHDAY/MOTHER'S DAY DINNER

I am so fortunate: I have very caring and wonderful sons, daughters-in-law, and grandchildren. Last night, my oldest son, J.D., and daughter-in-law, Kris, picked me up here at the house and took me to a Mexican restaurant called San Blas, in Molalla, Oregon, where we were to meet my middle son, Jeff, his wife, Steph, and grandchildren, 5 1/2-year-old Noah and 2 year-old Emily. (My youngest son, Tony, daughter-in-law, Kamie, and grandsons, 9-year-old Michael and 7-year-old Alex, live in Bend, Oregon -- about a 3 1/2 hour drive from here -- and I will be going to see them next weekend.)

J.D., Kris and I got the the restaurant a little bit earlier than Jeff's family, so we munched on tortilla chips and salsa until they arrived. Noah came running up to me and gave me a big hug, then settled into the chair next to me. I got hugs from him all evening. A little later on, Emily wanted to get down from her high chair and come sit on my lap, so I quite carefully lifted her up onto my lap. She stayed there for quite a while and at one point said a complete sentence having to do with Noah. I was very impressed.

I don't like pictures of myself as a general rule but here is one that Steph took of me and Noah and Emily.



I had a delicious meal of chicken in a sour cream sauce that contained mushrooms and onions, which I put in flour tortillas. I also had Spanish rice and refried beans. I was unable to eat it all and I didn't take any home -- I'm not sure why; I guess I wasn't sure how it would affect my cholestrol and diabetes to eat a lot of it.

Noah and Emily had their favorite quesadillas. Noah pointed out all of the colorful fake parrots hanging from the ceiling at various spots in the restaurant. We had a few interesting conversations: One was about my rings. He wondered why I was wearing my emerald ring since I'm not married. I explained to him that if I was married, I would wear a diamond ring on my left hand (where I am wearing a cat-figured gold ring). And that I wear the emerald ring on my right hand because I think it's pretty. He is getting so grown up!

Kris gave me a pretty fish suncatcher. Noah approved. I hung it in my kitchen when I got home and my friend Cynthia on Flickr agrees that it is cute. Here is the picture I took of it last night after hanging it up when I got home. (I had thought I didn't have a suction cup hanger but I borrowed one from another suncatcher that had fallen down; I'll have to get more of the hangers later on for that one.)



Kris is so thoughtful! I also received a card with a kitty on it from Jeff, Steph and family, promising pictures of the kids, which I always love!

Here is a picture of Kris and J.D. I notice that J.D. is looking thinner, and that is likely attributable to his time at home now, part of which is spent running in training for the Portland Marathon, which he hasn't run in before. (He has a blog called Get Fit Slowly.)



Here are Jeff and Steph. Steph had taken a sudden trip south to Corvallis, Oregon that day for a class, and she learned at one point that Barack Obama had been right next door. She said she would have liked to go see him if she had known! ;-)



It was such a pleasure to be with my family. It had been a few years since we had gone out together. Thank you, Kris, for suggesting it. And all of you for being there and making it a special evening for me.

*****

I had been kind of expecting a call from my friend, Linda, this morning, if she was going to have time to see me today as she thought she would be in the area, traveling from her home in central Oregon. There has been no call yet and I suspect that she has either not made it here or else is just terribly busy, as she generally tends to be. I plan to be in her area next weekend when I visit Tony and family, but she is involved in helping produce a musical at one of the high schools there in the Redmond-Bend area at that time, so I won't be able to see her. She thought she would be in this area sometime in the next week -- we are truly playing this by ear, which is fine with me.

*****

This afternoon, I am going to be working at the business, doing the work that I generally do on Friday evenings. I suspect there may be another stack of filing but Jeff said last night that it wasn't anything like what I had waiting for me on Wednesday! ;-) I also have a movie to watch sometime this weekend -- probably tonight. It's "The Bourne Supremacy" -- I believe the only movie in the Bourne series that I haven't seen. So the weekend is looking busier than I originally expected. I hope y'all are having a nice one, too!