Celebrate Good Times...

Well, here we are, unscathed after a weekend of celebration...

OK...after a day of celebration...the rest of the weekend was work leading up to and cleaning up the celebration.

I spent the better part of Friday in my kitchen, whipping up dips, making a cake, brewing some real Iced Tea (and while not Sweet Tea, it was still mighty tasty yesterday!), making lemonade, and planning out how my table would be set up for the buffet of treats.

Saturday we swept the deck, pressure washed anything that didn't move, and set up the tables and chairs, cleaned up from the dog and neighborhood wandering cats (don't get me started on this today) that use our yard as their litterbox. BB mowed, trimmed, weed-whacked, edged, dug, sprayed, clipped and pruned every single plant and blade of grass possible, bless his heart...

I then treated BB to a monologue of how the day would go on Sunday, and what the menu was for the 87th time that day...

Just to set the record straight, I am not OCD. Yes, my spice cabinet is alphabetized (makes it ever so much easier to find things), and my closet and dresser are color ordered and then weight/sleeve length (again, so much easier in the dim mornings to find things), and Yes my book cases are somewhat ordered, first by height, then by author...but I repeat, I AM NOT OCD. I was just brought up by a mother who was a 1st Lieutenant in the Army, who was raised by a mother that (GASP) owned a hotel and worked full-time. I learned early the benefits of being organized. I don't always like it, and sometimes I fight full-on against it (look in my office right now, for example), but I decided early on it was just easier to do some of the organization and planning like my Mom does it...

Saturday night, I tumbled into bed at 9:30, while BB stayed downstairs and watched "I Am Legend" all by himself. He was so freaked out that he closed all the blinds, all the shutters, and pratically ran upstairs and threw himself into bed. I was sound asleep, and he was up most of the night. I suppose I could have been very unsympathetic towards him, but I understand. Half of the reason I went to bed at 9:30 was because I knew it was a scary movie, and I didn't want to be up all night with freak out sessions and nightmares...

Sunday, I got up early, did all the noiseless things like empty the dishwasher, wash all the fruits and veggies, make sure I had all the paper plates, plastic cups and silverware out, checked the iced tea to insure that it was the right strength (nothing quite like a glass of tea-colored water)...and frosted the cake with whipped cream, and stuck it in my filled refrigerator.

The birthday part of the day was fabulous. We had everything ready to go at 11am, BB ran some errands and had his portion of the helping done before my folks arrived at noon. The grill was fired up and food was cooking on schedule a little after 1pm. We ate lots of food, spent the day in the shade on the deck, watching Captain Chaos take turns between his wading pool and his sandbox, pulling each of us in turn to come and help him splash and dig. We ate cake and ice cream, he opened his gifts (kid made out like a bandit!), and then we cleaned up, everyone left, and we put him down for a nap.

It was nice. Pictures will come along shortly...I have yet to upload them today. Too tired, and a bit cranky from the anniversary part of the day...which will follow in another section.