Wine's Not the Only Thing That Improves With Age

Yesterday was Susan's birthday. She is now a woman of a certain age.

At work, she received birthday wishes from coworkers who had been tipped off by the principal, who himself had been notified by a certain someone. She received birthday greetings by e-mail from some of my coworkers, who found out about her birthday by mysterious means. At a staff meeting after school, someone demonstrating a laser engraver chose to put Susan's name on the sample wooden pen, so she came home with an unexpected birthday gift from school. In the mail, Susan received cards from relatives to brighten up her day.

I brought the girls home after school, and we went to Applebee's for supper and had superior service and a delicious meal. I ordered a tall beer and the shrimp and (which they spell simply with an apostrophe before an "n," as though "and" is an unwieldy enough word to require contracting--and incorrectly contracting, at that [what about an apostrophe to represent the missing "d," too?]) parmesan combo, which involves a single serving of their tasty spinach and artichoke dip with soft wedges of toasted rosemary ciabatta bread as an appetizer; a juicy sirloin topped with plump garlic shrimp, fresh shredded parmesan cheese, and herbs as the main dish; garlic mashed potatoes, toasted garlic bread, and sugar snap peas and carrots as a side; and, for dessert, a maple butter blondie cake baked with nuts and topped with vanilla ice cream, chopped sugared walnuts, and their "decadent" maple butter sauce served warm. It was all so-o-o-o good.

Susan and the girls were happy with their choices, too. And Abigail tipped off the server to the special reason for our visit, so the entire team of "Apple-buddies" (I kid you not) came to the table to sing their own special birthday song to Susan. It was very fun.

When we got home, we were all too stuffed to eat the devil's food cake with buttercream frosting that The Donut Hole baked for her, so we'll have that sometime today, most likely with Schwan's vanilla ice cream. We did, however, have time for gift opening.

Mommy and her precious girls

Silly!

The girls intently watch the gift opening

A sweatshirt from Dad and Beverly: "Season's Readings" (a gift fit for a librarian!)

An appropriate card from the girls

Salt and pepper shakers from the girls (the kitchen has rooster decor)

A wall hanging with hooks

A lotion or hand soap pump dispenser

Susan reacts to the emotional, sincere card from her husband

From the hubby: a corner bookcase and a plaque that we had found and discussed buying for our powder room off the mud room

In its place (now we have a direction for decorating the rest of the powder room)

With some temporary accessories (until we decide on a color scheme and such)

We're so happy to have Mommy/Sweet Wife in our lives! Happy birthday: a perfect reason for celebrating.

ADDENDUM: We did, in fact, eat cake and ice cream today after dinner.