Two October Birthdays

Sarah at her 28th birthday party, two days after her birthday.

I can't believe it's been almost eight weeks since I last posted to this blog. Our fifteen-day vacation to northern California took a lot out of me, both in preparing everything beforehand and in recovering afterward. Still, I can't let October end without looking back on the birthday celebrations of two of my favorite ladies, my daughter Sarah and my daughter-in-law Danielle.

Sarah turned twenty-eight on Friday, October 27th. We didn't have time to do a proper party on her actual birthday, due to the usual work-schedule mayhem, but we did get together that night to have dinner at our favorite Mexican restaurant, El Rancho. None of us eat out often because none of us can really afford to do so, yet we always manage to celebrate birthdays according to this family tradition. 

Sarah gets the star treatment at El Rancho, with deep-fried ice cream.

I think maybe Chris didn't know he was going to be in the picture, too... 

It's fun when the restaurant staff comes out, loudly singing "Happy Birthday to You," serving you a bowl (or, this time, a cup) of delicious deep-fried ice cream, placing a sombrero on your head, and taking your picture to post on their Facebook page. We've been doing this for more than twenty years, since back before there was such a thing as a Facebook page!

Dinner at El Rancho, from left to right: Brooke (Dylan and Jake's

friend and roommate), Jake, Dylan, Mark, Mary, Sarah, and Chris.

We finally had Sarah's birthday party on Sunday, as part of our weekly family dinner. She chose our dinner menu of pasta combo and garlic bread. Pasta combo is an old family favorite, which consists of spaghetti noodles, Italian dressing, shredded Parmesan cheese, diced tomatoes, and shredded chicken. It is yummy! Along with it, Dylan made his garlic bread, which is always so much tastier than the pre-made type.

Sarah's gifts from her parents, waiting to be unwrapped.

After dinner, we watched the old, classic Halloween cartoon, It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. I hadn't seen it in decades, but it made me nostalgic because, as kids, my siblings and I used to watch that cartoon when it aired every single year in October. Besides that, we'd just visited the Charles M. Schulz Museum in Santa Rosa, California, almost four weeks ago. Thank goodness, the museum was spared from the tragic wildfires that roared through Santa Rosa just four days after we were there. However, sadly, I heard that his widow was barely evacuated in time before their house was destroyed.

Sarah opens a card from her husband, Chris. It got us all laughing!

After the cartoon, it was time to open presents. From Chris, Sarah got an iTunes gift card, which she already started using that very night to download ringtones for her brand-new iPhone. He is also getting her David Archuleta's spanking-new album, Postcards in the Sky, but they haven't been able to find it available anywhere yet. Soon!

Sarah with her gifts from her dad.

Sarah has to wait a bit longer to get her gifts from both of her brothers. Jacob found a gift that he says is perfect for her, but he can't order it until November 7th. However, he sent a picture of it to Dylan, who says she will love it!

Dylan and Jake have already ordered Sarah's present from them, but it won't arrive until sometime this week. I've seen a picture of it. She'll love that one, too!

Sarah with her gifts from her mom. (And a photo-bomb by Dylan...)

Mark got her a purple sweater (her favorite color) and a beautiful necklace to go with it. From me, she got a vase of Halloween flowers with a black cat attached, because Halloween is a big part of my memories of her birth, since we were both still in the hospital on Halloween night back in 1989. I also gave her a little black-bear figurine, with a hidden hidey-hole when you pull the bear out of his hollow log. About two months ago, Sarah lost her wedding rings when she took them off somewhere and then couldn't find them. Eventually, weeks later, Chris stumbled across them. I told her this little bear will keep them safe for her whenever she needs to take her rings off in the future!

A new cheesecake recipe this year. Oh. My. Gosh. Delicious!

For dessert, Sarah requested my sugar-free cheesecake and some mint-and-chip ice cream. However, I tried a new cheesecake recipe this time. We've loved the recipe I've been using for years, which purportedly was based on Cheesecake Factory's six-carb cheesecake, but I never felt the texture or flavor were quite right. Then, last week, I found a recipe that's supposed to be for the actual original cheesecake from Cheesecake Factory. So I used that one this time, just switching out the sugar for Splenda/Stevia and adding sugar-free chocolate chips.

I forgot to take a picture of the finished project until it was almost gone!

I wasn't too sure about it when it first came out of the oven. I was afraid it was too spongy and wouldn't set up correctly, but after a few hours in the fridge...let's just say, I struck gold! Super fluffy and creamy! It got two thumbs up from everyone. I'm tossing the old recipe in favor of the new one, which really is the closest I've ever tasted to our favorite Cheesecake Factory treats!

We got to watch Danielle open this gift via Dylan's iPhone.

The day after Sarah's birthday, on October 28th, Danielle celebrated her 24th birthday. We haven't gotten to be with her on her birthday since she and Jacob moved to Utah in September 2015, but this time we did get to spend a few minutes with her via cell phone. (Remember when seeing each other while talking on the phone was nothing more than science fiction?) It allowed me to watch while she opened the gift I'd sent her, a little figurine of a dragon reading a book. Danielle loves to read and has even written a book (as yet unpublished), which in itself makes the gift perfect for her, but this dragon has quite a history all its own.

Danielle first saw a version of this figurine back in March of 2015 at the Renaissance Festival. This one had purple wings (or maybe they were blue), but Danielle fell in love. She was so sad that they couldn't afford it at that time, being young newlyweds of only nine months. Exactly a year later, after they'd moved to Utah, the rest of us found that same shop at the 2016 Renaissance Festival. When I saw another of those dragons there, I remembered how disappointed Danielle had been to leave it behind, so I decided to buy one for her 23rd birthday, seven months away. The one I wanted was sold out, so I ordered and prepaid for one to be made and mailed to me by September, this time with wings in Danielle's favorite color, pink. However, I waited and waited, but the little dragon never came. Then I couldn't find the receipt (anyone who knows me knows that I save and organize all my receipts and never lose them!) and none of us could recall the name of the shop. I looked up all the shops listed for the Arizona Renaissance Festival; I looked up websites for every possible shop; I asked around; I posted on Facebook; I even tried to find photos of dragons in the same general style online. In the end, I had to wait until the next Renaissance Festival, in February of this year. There was the shop, Whimsy Winks (which, as it turns out, does not have a website). I told my story to the sculptor, who thankfully remembered my order. There'd been a mix-up on their end, wherein someone had mistakenly marked that the package had been mailed. Meanwhile, someone else thought my pink-winged dragon had never been claimed and had returned it to a shelf in back. Thankfully, they had brought it with them from North Dakota and, thankfully, they hadn't put it back out for sale. Finally, the reading dragon was coming home with us. Since then, we've treated it like spun glass!

After all the stress and worry and waiting, I just had to "be there" when Danielle opened the package. It was a year later than planned, but it was home with her at last. That made it so much more worthwhile to see her eyes light up as she recognized her little dragon. I'm so happy that she loved it as much as I'd hoped she would.

Happy birthday to both my girls!

A closeup of the reading dragon.