Milestones A-Mundo

Wow. Another busy weekend. These graduations and birthdays have us hopping. This weekend we went to another nephew's graduation (I have a total of four graduating nephews this year, Two from high school and two from college.) In addition we had a birthday party for my mom.

Saturday's graduate was Jack, my sister Joni's son up in Petaluma. Joni's house is flat and it's the one house in my family that is easy for Maggie's wheelchair. She hardly gets to go to anything, because it's too far away, or too long or not accessible or something; but this one would work. It is about a 45 minute drive, but Steve drove and I sat in the back with Maggie. Since we had my mom and Tim with us, it was easy. We arrived and got Maggie into the house and went straight through to the back. They have an enormous back yard and the party was out there. The day before the party by brother in law put the finishing touches on the new deck, which looked great. Unfortunately, he decided to drop it down about a foot and now there was a two step drop outside. BUMMER. Maggie stayed inside for a bit and then we lifted her down to the deck. It was not difficult and this house is still the easiest of all of my siblings, but the ease of movement was gone.
Oh well, the party was great.

Joni had SOOOOO much food that she gave me a Caeser Salad to take home. I don't mean just a salad for dinner, I'm talking about a GIANT salad - she had two of them plus a ton of other food. I was hosting a brunch on Sunday and I could put that Caeser to good use. To give you an idea of the size of the thing, Steve and Tim and I had only salad for dinner on Saturday, I fed it to 16 people for brunch, four of us had it for dinner on Sunday and there's still a full sized bowl full left. It was delicious.

The brunch was in honor of my mother's birthday. It's a big one, but I won't publish her age here. Believe me when I tell you she doesn't look or act it; but it needed celebrating. My brother came up form LA with his wife, three of my sisters and their husbands and 6 of the 20 grandchildren came here for brunch. In a birthday miracle, the fog cleared long enough to enjoy the back deck for a while. It was a whirlwind fiesta but there was a lot of laughing, and loud talking. Maggie sort of checked out and just snoozed in the living room.

Pictures - above, the birthday girl is blowing out the candle on the LIME cheesecake that my sister Kate made from the gazillion limes in her garden. Oh MY, that was good. Below is me and Steve, my sister in law Dianne and the birthday girl. It was a fun afternoon.

Once everyone was gone, Steve took off on his bike for a few hours. Tim and Maggie and I kind of  lazed around and recovered. I am still in a bit of recovery mode, but today, Mom camp resumes. It is up to me to make sure Miss Maggie is entertained.  It's a drippy day out there, so we may have to do something indoorsy. Maggie is fine with that as long as the focus stays on her.  No more of this honoring others nonsense for her. It's back to Maggie as the Center of the Universe.

All is right with the world.