Sunday at the Simmons: Birthday Blizzard

Remember a couple of weeks ago when the forecasters predicted a huge weekend blizzard and we all prepared for it by stocking up on groceries and filling up our gas tanks? And then, nothing....Ok, so the weather people were off by a couple of weeks, so we still got our snowy weekend THIS weekend.
On Friday, the PLAN was that I would pick up Mom in Aurora at Don's house, then take her "senior living" shopping for a new residence, then meet up with Pam and we'd have a birthday dinner. We looked at three places (these were in addition to the various places that she'd previously looked at with Don & Vicki, Pam, and then Alex), none of which suited her the way some others had, but we had a nice day and had lunch at one of the stops. We were getting ready to meet Pam when we learned that the snow had already begun falling in Greeley. So, we nixed that plan, and I drove home where several areas were already experiencing "white-out" conditions.
It snowed all night and continued on through much of the day Saturday. Brad and I had planned on going to Ft Collins to play bridge, but that was cancelled due to the weather, so we just stayed in, other than taking Gramma to her hair appointment and going to get groceries. Brad cooked one of my favorite meals, which along with a bottle of wine, was the highlight of that day!
My wonderful family really rallied on Sunday and I have to say that it was one of my favorite birthday celebrations! Carrie, Gabi, Meredith, Emma and I began with a Chinese lunch, then off to do some birthday shopping, made a little more challenging than they realized the two places they had intended to take me were both closed! We then met up with Amie and Sophie for mani-pedis, keeping the Chinese theme going!

We then did some on the spot shopping at a nearby store, where I randomly picked up some birthday gifts, then home to a huge pot of Cajun boil that Brad had made while we were gone. And of course, I was treated to the usual "play" done by the grand kids with Emma singing solo in the background, the girls dancing, and then the finale, the boys unrolling a banner with "Happy Birthday Grandma" written on it!