Once Upon A Party

July 12

Back at home with Grandma, Cyndi, and Danilo we had a few moments for some rest and relaxation. The guys took advantage of some nice weather and enjoyed our pond with a paddle boat ride. Oops, guess again! If you look closely in Ameridad's hand you will see a remote controlled helicopter. Guess someone, and I won't mention any names, flew the helicopter into the water. I will give you a hint, the pilot isn't an American. Good news: there was no damage to the copter and it flew more missions before we left for our vacation.

Having the Italians visiting for a whole month might sound like a lot of time, but since we are planning a three week road trip we know time will be limited. Many of our friends wanted to see our foreign visitors so I thought of the perfect way to make that possible. I picked tonight for a surprise party and had several of our friends come over for a mass visit. Cyndi knows me so well that surprising her was not an easy task. As a matter of fact, while we were sitting next to each other I received an RSVP telling me that they would be able to attend. I kept the conversation short as I didn't want to tip off Cyndi, but I must have looked guilty of something. After the phone call she asked me what was up. I knew I couldn't get out of this one so I confessed as to whom I was talking and told her that tonight this person would be coming over along with another friend. This was the truth; I just didn't tell her that there were others coming over too.

Some of our guests getting caught up on what the Italians have been up to.

Thrown in with the surprise get-together was the early (surprise) celebration of my birthday. My wonderful daughter-in-law is a fantastic cake decorator and made me a tasty cake. The top of my cake was decorated with a few of my favorite things. Cara helped me blow out the candles on my cake and was the first to taste the delicious icing.

One of the favorite things on my cake was a small swimming pool representing my enjoyment of the water. As you can see by my face, that I got that piece. Guess what? Blue food coloring stains your mouth! Oh well.

Everyone got a laugh out of my new make-up. Cara, however, always knows I am good for a laugh didn't think that this was unusual for me, although she did have lots smiles for me.