More Birthday smiles

August is a month of birthdays for us.  In our family Ellie, Marla, Ernie, David and I have August birthdays. My friends Marie, Craig, Laima, Krystal, Treva and LouAnn also have birthdays in August.  What a happy month.  We are blowing out candles and eating cake all month.

When we got home from our trip to Utah and Vegas, where I celebrated my birthday, I found more birthday surprises waiting for me. Marie had sent me lovely gifts from England. Jan had set up a birthday tea party for me. Kris had a gift waiting for me and so did LouAnn. I’m sorry that I was so busy unpacking from our trip that I didn’t get pictures….. but they made me very happy. I feel loved. Thank you all so much.

A few days after we returned from Utah it was Ernie’s birthday.

We had fun celebrating with him and his sweet family.

After a dinner out, Ernie was happy to go home to open his gifts

and have his special cake from Knott’s Berry Farm.

It was a very nice evening. We are so glad they live close to us and we can share these special times with them. (I think our Mindy is a cute wife, mom and  photographer…don’t you?)

…

Our next party came the following week at our house.

My sweet friend, LouAnn turned 75 while we were in Utah. I thought that accomplishment deserved a surprise party….. so I gave her one when we got home.

Since it was 2 weeks after her birthday, she was really surprised.

Our house was all decorated up festively in Hawaiian theme.

There was lots of good food…. and of course…

A birthday cake.

We had a house full of guests.  Everyone had a really good time.

Kris and Ralph even did the hula for us….(Every birthday luau needs hula dancers.)

My friend Ruth helped me give this party. She made the invitations, bought the cake and helped all that night with the food tables. Claire came over for 2 days to help me decorated and get ready. Mindy and EJ helped me sweep up the patios so they would look nice for the party.  Jan helped me get the house cleaned up.  I really appreciate all the good help I got giving this surprise party for LouAnn.

It was a lovely night. I am thankful that I had the health and strength to do this for my sweet friend. She did so much to help me after the accident. Giving this party for her brought me lots of pleasure. My heart is smiling.

I hope that you are smiling too.

Hugs, Grammy Lura

PS… I took my lap top to the Geek squad today. It is very sick with a  virus.  I hope that they can fix it up without me losing too much data. Wish me luck.

Bad Luck Week

I'm feeling fine and would like to share some really nice smiles with you but I can't .   My computer was working fine yesterday but not today.  It says it is a hard drive problem!!!!! All the pictures I want to share with you are on my computer.  I'm worried. I will be so sad if I've lost everything again. The hard drive crashed on it once before when it was only 2 months old.

I am not a happy camper.   Wish me luck and have a good week.
Hugs, Grammy L

Not tonight

Hello blog friends.   I hope you are doing well.  I'm sorry that I'm not up to writing a post tonight.  I'll be back on top of things soon and share lots of smiles with you.

Until then..... I hope you are doing well and I'm sending hugs.  Have a good week. Grammy Lura

Happy Birthday Smiles

Dear Blog Friends,

Perhaps you’ve noticed that I’ve been away for a couple of weeks. We went to Wyoming to join our family as they camped on the Snake River. We also spent a week in Utah.  We had a wonderful time that I will tell you about in other post.

Today I want to tell you about my best birthday ever!

It all started last week in Utah at my son's home.

David and the kids got up early to make a wonderful birthday breakfast.

David had left late the night before to run off to the store with Grampy. I wondered why he hurried off in a rush.  The next morning when he made this great meal I understood. Wasn’t that a sweet thing for him to do!!!

Later that day we all met at Erin’s home to celebrate together. It was the first time in years that I’ve been with all 4 of my children and all but 2 of my grandchildren to celebrate my birthday. How special that was!

Ellie and I share the same birthday. She was having lots of fun with the birthday balloons. Marla’s birthday is the day after ours so we had 3 birthday girls in the house.

Ellie loves noodles and that is what she wanted for birthday dinner.

We had every kind of pasta and sauces you could think of.

We all enjoyed Ellie’s choice  of birthday dinner.

Before long it was time for us birthday girls to open our presents.

We all had so much fun watching Ellie open her gifts. She loved each one and so did I.

After opening gifts it was piñata time. If you are wondering why the piñata was a transformer wearing a tutu don’t ask…it is a long story.

It took a lot of hits to break the piñata but the kids thought candy reward was worth the effort.

Ellie got the honor of blowing out the 2 candles on the cake.  I wonder why they didn’t put on 68 for me????lol

It was a wonderful day with family. I wanted to get a picture of John and me with our 4 kids.

If you think I look like I was screaming ….. I was. Just as this picture was snapped, David poured ice cold water down the back of my neck….Look close and you will see the red cup behind my neck…  that brat! Everyone thought that was so funny…. even me. 

I made them take another picture but the whole family likes the yelling one better.

Monday, which was my actual birthday, we drove to Vegas, where I got to stay in the Excalibur Castle. Grammy felt like a Queen.

Mindy and Ernie knew I’ve been wanting to see Phantom of the Opera in Vegas where there is a special theater built just for it….so they took me…. I was so excited!!!!

I had seen Phantom twice in LA  and loved it….. but nothing compares to seeing this production in Vegas. The theater was beautiful and the special effects were breathtaking.  It was phenomenal!!!

We all had a wonderful time.

After the theater, we enjoyed walking around Venice (Vegas style).

Then they took me out for a lovely dinner at P F Changs.

My two days of birthday celebrations were the best I’ve ever had.

I feel so blessed and I’m very thankful.

Speaking of Birthdays…..

It is Marie’s birthday tomorrow.  Why don’t you hop over to her blog and send her some birthday love.

Have a great week.  Hugs, Grammy Lura