My Birthday

My birthday was so great this year. Thanks everyone for your birthday greetings. I was blown away by how sweet everyone was.

I woke up early, 5:00am ish. Anyone who knows me knows that I think anything before 8:00 is early and even then it takes me a couple of hours before I feel ready to greet the world. I decided to puruse the web and so I got some coffee and pulled out my laptop. Facebook was bursting with birthday wishes and as I was checking that out two frineds saw I was on-line and two chat boxes popped up. It was a hoot trying to carry on two conversations at the same time. The time flew by and I realized that my dear frined Karin was coming by in a few minutes so I ran and got dressed. My kids started to stir and grandbaby came in to give me loves. Then my friend showed up with her husband too and we had the best visit. He is a photographer by profession and so he grabbed my camera and started shooting. I'm usually the one behind the camera so I thought it was very thoughtful of him to relieve me for a bit.
As they headed out the door another friend stopped by with presents. We visited for a while and caught up on the last few weeks.

After Dawna left, I got ready to spend the day with my dear husband. He took the day off to drive me around to all my favorite places. Let me just say, big points were made that day. So off we went to Portland and our first stop.

We went to lunch at a French cafe called St. Honore Boulangerie. The owner is from France and the little cafe was a piece of France or should I say heaven. I thought they might ask me to leave as I was moaning over every bite. I felt like Meg Ryan in "When Harry Met Sally" except my focus was on the food. I am so going back there.

Beautiful latte so creamy and rich

filled my tummy with foamy bliss!

Chicken salad with garlic croutons made from their bread.

OH, Oh so good and I could only eat about half.

Then there was this sweet little beauty. This is where the moaning got out of control. It was filled with a custard and just melted in your mouth. Just looking at the photos makes me want to go back there right now. Mmmmmmm :)

Then my husband drove me to Art Media for pens ( Pitt brush markers & micron pens in 4 colors) and paper (Fariano & Stonehenge). Next was Brighton to spend my gift certificate. I got the heart locket I pasted in one of my journal pages last week. Next it was off to J Jill for a sweater and Barnes & Nobles for a book on Ireland. We are planning on going there next year and I wanted to start checking out all the sights. Then, still feeling like I was floating in the clouds, we met the family at Claim Jumper for dinner.

I got the chicken pot pie. It was so beautiful but I was still full from lunch so I took most of it home along with the Motherload chocolate cake. We are talking 10 layers of fudgey chocolate cake that feeds your whole family and then some.

I shared my piece with you-know-who. The most precious person in the whole world.

It was a very good, perfect and beautiful day. It is nice to have one of those once in a while.

I have been working on some journal pages the last few days and experimenting with my watercolors. Paulette and my niece Janene came down to the beach to visit me and do some art journaling. We had a great time and the weather has been wonderful. I am still waiting for my new camera to come but here a few journal pages to check out in the meantime. They are not in date order. I used to be able to move them around in here and something has changed so, hmm, I wonder what to do about that. Oh well, enjoy them anyway.

On this page about my birthday, I actually traced my grandbaby's hand. Someday we will look at this and be amazed at how small it is. I wish I had been into art journaling when my own kids were little. I always had hopes of scrapbooking but with art journaling you can just trace it right on the page and is more spontanious which works better for me.