You Say It's Your Birthday....

It's infrequent to get up and write my post on my actual birthday. but it's also a pleasure to do so.
I'm reflecting this morning on the positive things about this particular birthday.  Not only am I ABLE to get up and to write, but I then have the opportunity to go to work at a job that I not only like, but that is my saving grace!  I have an amazing family!.....  Three wonderful children and their mates and their children who make my life complete, despite a few "holes" in my home life. I am grateful!!!! I'm also fortunate to have good health thus far and to have made it to have Medicare....hooray!

This has been a tough week, beginning with coming down with whatever swell virus that has been circulating the country, and being sick enough to miss going to the Garth Brooks Concert on Wednesday.  You know I had to be stinkin sick to miss THAT.  People ask if I couldn't have just rallied for a few hours to attend- oh heck no!- I couldn't even gather up enough energy to get dressed!  I am happy that Carrie, Meredith and Amie could attend and take notes (and pictures).  Ok, I will stop with the pity party.....
Friday morning, as Brad and I got ready for our weekend, he comes out of the bathroom having shaved off all of his facial hair!  If this doesn't sound news worthy, none of his children (and obviously the grandkids) and only a very young me had ever seen that face and frankly, it looked horrible that day.  It has since improved, but I still don't care for the look. He said he just wanted something different. (Hey, how about a tatoo?)  Just minutes after that disaster, Gramma comes wheeling out of her room and asks if she had done or said anything strange the night before. (Hmmm, compared to what?) She then stated that she had absolutely no memory of the events following dinner. We don't know if it was a mini-stroke or what, but she sure spent  a lot of time sleeping over the weekend!  Everyone keeps saying, "Well she IS 95"....

 We attended Gabi's 2nd grade concert held at the church in Eaton. Good show! All three girls, Emma, Sophie and Gabi love to sing (sure they got that from me).  I got to go with Gabi Friday afternoon to her voice lesson.  I guess THAT'S why I can't sing- never had singing lessons.....
She's getting ready for her tryout to be in "Annie".

 Saturday, Brad wanted to go play bridge in Ft. Collins, so after dropping Gramma off for her perm we stopped by Curt an Amie's to see Heather and Keva- who has grown so much since we last saw her last.  Sophie was working on a big project for school to be presented today.

 Anyway, we were off to play bridge and did okay until near the end, when Brad was playing a hand and had a seizure mid-play.  He later shared with me that he looked at the table and didn't recognize what was on it, just some "things".  He subsequently had a headache, was dizzy, lightheaded and suffered from tunnel vision.  The visual problems are still with him, although he says it is getting better....  We will see another neurologist in Denver in a few days.  Saturday night Amie, Carrie and I took the "littles" to Disney on Ice.  Although it was a repeat performance for the 3 older kids, it was Grayson's first.

 

 The Toy Story segment was  my favorite!  Grayson loved the cars.  They were all fans of the cotton candy and $18 snowcones!
Yesterday for my birthday celebration, the adults went to Bonefish for dinner.  We had a yummy dinner and I enjoyed a big A$$ glass of wine....my first in a month.  Guess I'll have to stick to drinking only on special occasions....other than Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays!  It sure hit the spot, though............

The Big Apple(bee's) Extravaganza

I had asked Gramma a couple of weeks ago what did she want to do for her 95th birthday.  Her initial response (besides "Huh?") was just to stay home and have some tacos (her favorite).  I suggested that we go out someplace and have dinner and she jumped at that option and chose Applebee's.......

They need some serious help with their cooking skills!  Anyway, I invited a few of her friends (unbeknownst to her) to come and join us, so we had a table for 25. Brad and I got her a new outfit for her birthday and she looked very pretty for her big day!

 She was surprised to see everyone!  (And we were all surprised when Doug actually showed up on time!After dinner, the family gathered back at our house. Doug took Gramma to "run an errand" , so eventually everyone left when his errand ran quite long.  When they got back, they "visited" until sometime after 10:00.  (I had to go to bed...5:00 comes early!)  The kids got her a new table and lamp for her room- a table that serves as a book cabinet, and a lamp that gives her a lot more reading light.  She was sure proud of them!  I was sure happy that her day turned out well, as she hadn't had the best of weeks.  She started coughing early in the week, so we took her to the Dr. Wednesday evening and then back on Friday for a chest x-ray (negative).  So, after a round of antibiotics, she's feeling much better, but of course, other family members now have that same junk (me included).
On Saturday, (while Brad was playing bridge with his "coffee" friends), Carrie and Amie and I took Gabi, Sophie and Corbin to see Cinderella.  I enjoyed it a lot...Sophie said afterwards, that she liked the movie "Mc Farland" better than Cinderella since she's "not really into princesses anymore"! I guess I still like them! When I got home I made Gramma her birthday taco dinner....

 Saturday morning, Amie ran a race (St Patty's Day) and came in first place for the women and 4th overall!  Congratulations!  Of course, it was the one race where she had no family spectators cheering her on and no awards upon completion..
Friday morning, Brad and I went shopping for a new washer/dryer which they delivered that afternoon and I've made good use of over the weekend.  We previously had Carrie and Spencer's "hand-me-ups"  (that's what I call my kids' old stuff given to us!) and they were shot.  This set, hopefully, will be the last one I purchase (my birthday gift to me!)

Yesterday, by the way, we reached a record high of 82 degrees!  What a beautiful day.  Brad and I went for a long walk (another one of those things he never would've done in his old state of health) which was good for both of us.  Wishing you a great Monday!

what am i saving my daylight for again?

Gotta love the change to daylight savings time, don't you?  Wouldn't we all love to get a hold of the guy who thought it would be dreamy to miss an hour of sleep on a random Saturday night so that we could all be grumpy on Sunday and feel sleep deprived for work on Monday?  (Of course, some people in my house will not be affected and will get plenty of Z's!)
Yesterday, the guys made an effort to go golfing,since the spring-like weather had finally come around,  but found that all of the courses still had too much snow on them.  Meanwhile, Carrie, Amie and I took the "littles" (Sophie, Gabi, Corbin and Grayson) on a bike ride/ walk on the Poudre River trail.

 

We made it 2.5 miles with only a couple of spills, crashes and rounds of crying.  When we were done, they wanted to go again!  There will be more Sundays!  We got back to the house after taking a detour to "Big R", a local farm store that had advertised their cowboy boots for 75% off, where Carrie, Amie and I all got some stellar deals on boots,  Guess we'll all be set for the Stampede and any upcoming concerts  (Garth Brooks in Mid-March!)  After dinner .....Oh, wait!

 Everyone in the family is dieting (or giving up something for Lent, maybe!), so as Spencer put it yesterday, "It's no fun anymore" (meaning the low-cal food and no alcohol!)  and grabbed a "baconator" instead of the Sunday dinner....

 Anyway, after dinner, Curt and his kids and Emma had a standing long jump contest, with Rory the champ by an inch.

 Other news this week....I had a vacation (?) day Thursday, so Brad and I ran some errands that included a trip to Costco.  After that, he was pooped and it was nap time.  Friday, I made dinner to take to Erin and Tony and new baby Stella.  Erin is "gluten free" so, it was somewhat a challenge to make the meal, but they said it was good.

 Curt and Spencer stopped by the house Friday, displaying their garage sale "finds", a boxful of ghetto hats which they are making a killing selling on Ebay!

Those two never cease to amaze me!

 Hey, enjoy that daylight!

The birthdays come "Marching" in

Let's get this party started, and I'm not talking about St. Patrick's Day either.  March and August are our big birthday months in our family, so we began with Curt's whose actual birthday is today.  Happy birthday, Curt!  We celebrated yesterday with dinner, dessert and gift cards and added a game of Tripoli.  I have to admit that it was one of our best Sundays at the Simmons!  We sure had a lot of laughs!  Of course, between Brad and Gramma, you never know how things will roll, but it's impossible to keep from laughing (at) them.  Gramma never quite caught on to the game, but kept saying things like, "Do you need more cards?  I've got scads of them. (This game is played with just one deck) or right in the middle of the game when everyone was talking, she'd blurt out,"who has the 3 of clubs?"  Then there was Brad who called a quarter a "deck", and consistently lost track of what was going on, but won game after game!

 

 While our big card game was going on, the kids (all seven of them) played downstairs. Not sure what they were doing, but they were getting along!  We were happy to have Elijah join us this week, having not seen him for several Sundays.  I swear he grew 6" since we last saw him!

In other news this week, (guess snow isn't all that newsworthy) we, in Greeley, have had much less snow than the rest of the state, and although they still have 8-10" on the ground in Denver, we have none left here, just lots of cold and windy days, with more ahead.

Friday morning my new vacuum arrived via FedEx and I was in a hurry to try it out.  Unfortunately, the main unit in the garage sustained the damage from Brad's attempt to fix it last week, so now I have to wait for THAT to get here.   Meanwhile, Spencer and Curt came to help install a new "dustpan" on the end of the dishwasher cabinet.  After a few attempts, they were successful in getting that done.  Brad decided that he could fix the main unit in the garage, so that I could use the vacuum. I don't think his "fix" (note the switch on the top of the canister) would pass inspection and could be a fire hazard, but hey!, I did get the house vacuumed! 

On Friday, I was able to attend my brain tumor support group held monthly in Loveland.  On arrival back home, I met Carrie and the kids at the Fun Plex (they were out of school for conferences) and watched them play for a couple of hours.  They were worn out after that!

 Sophie had her last basketball game on Saturday morning, where her other Grandpa (Roger) came to watch.  This weekend, my two newest seamstresses, Gabi an Carrie, spent time making quilts. I'm proud of their efforts! (Sorry I couldn't get a picture of Gabi's quilt.  She wondered what she would do with it, and suggested giving it to baby Stella, my co-workers, new baby!)

 Happy Monday everyone!