Perfect Day For a Party

Becca (in the middle) of her wonderful friends, had a perfect day for a birthday party. Sunshine and temperatures in the low 60's, wow, and this is November! Our daughter reminded us that last year on this date, Minneapolis received a significant amount of snow for the first snowfall of the season. I guess we had forgotten about that.

Made sure I jazzed up my Heath Bar cheesecake before taking it over to Becca's house. A little caramel and crushed Heath Bar pieces.

.

Stopped over at the Son's apartment in St. Paul and caught him busy making a batch of pumpkin spice cupcakes with brown butter frosting for his sister's party. Nice! The brown butter frosting was a nice compliment for pumpkin and spices.

I was so happy that our family could be together for Becca's "quarter of a century" birthday. Good food tonight, chicken & beef enchiladas, spanish rice, refried beans, homemade salsa and chips and salad. Thanks to Bike man for making the homemade corn & flour tortillas!

Thank heavens for the clean-up crew! Friends and family are the best. Twenty five years ago? Yup, I remember that day so distinctly.....it changed my life forever.

November Birthday

Someone has a birthday coming up, so I decided to make her a cheesecake, a Heath candy bar cheesecake! After baking for 1 hour and 15 minutes, I turned the oven off and left the cheesecake in the oven to slowly cool. This is what the cheesecake looked after I took it out of the oven. Cooling the cheesecake down slowly will reduce cracking. Tomorrow I will top with caramel topping and small pieces of Heath candy bar pieces.

Our daughter Becca turns 25 on Sunday. Wow, where did the time fly?

All in Fun

Our friend Anna (Bike man calls her our adopted daughter) is expecting.....expecting a baby girl in February. How exciting.

Spent last night attending Anna's baby shower. It's not often I'm invited to a baby shower. Babies haven't been apart of our lives for many years. So what do you do at a baby shower? Ohhhhh, play games, silly games. We were asked to make a baby out of playdough. The green baby was my attempt towards a real-looking baby! Kinda looks like a teletubby baby....oops!

I hope I never have to play this diaper game again, gross! We had to identify seven diapers that had some sort of melted candy bar in each one. If you identified the correct melted candy bar, you got a prize.....whoo hoo! How about a little guacamole sauce mixed in or yellow mustard? Now that's more realistic my friends.

Oh heck, it was all in fun. A little wine, a little food and lots of laughs, that's what it's all about. Even Bike man showed up at the end of the party to see the silliness.

So happy for Anna. I think she'll make an excellent mama!

Crabby Girl Just Showing Her Love!

I'm not really sure why, but Crabby Abbie gets excited when I come home from work.....especially when I'm wearing a jacket. It never fails, when I wear a jacket, Abby gets the uncontrollable urge to jump up on my shoulder and perch there for a while. Thank heavens for the jacket, otherwise I couldn't stand her big claws! We need to clip that massive claws soon.

First time in a long time that I went out running in the dark, well, not really. The full moon lite my running route, it was so cool. Not use to this time change yet. Was I scared running in the dark? Yup, just a little. Kept thinking a deer was going to jump out from the wood and snort at me!!!!

PS. Don't worry, I actually wore my red blinkie light tonight so I would be visible to cars. Thank heavens for bicycle lights.

Was I Seeing Things!

Imagine this coming down the road towards you in the dark. While out running tonight in the dark, I see these colorful flashing lights......I think, gee there's another person out running in the dark just like me and they have flashing light! As the lights got closer to me, I realize the lights are colored and they are going round and round.

Awhhhh, it's Bike man!!!!!

He just ordered more Monkey Electric lights and wanted to try them out, so he took off looking for me on my running route. It was kind of fun having a running partner all decked out in lights! Me? I just had a red flashing light......boring!!!!

Headed For Home

Headed towards home this morning. Made our route along the Mississippi River heading north. Stopped in Trempealeau for a lunch break and spotted this river barge heading north. Won't be long and the barges will stop moving for the winter months.

Arrived home and immediately started unpacking. I only turned my back for two minutes and suddenly I find a cat snoozing in my suitcase. Come on Manny, I'm still unpacking and your getting kitty fur all over my clothes! Geez

What is it with cats and suitcases? Abby couldn't resist laying across Bike man's bag. Something tells me our feline friends were excited to see us come home.

Happy to arrive home and get back to our normal schedule.