I truly have had the best birthday week. I've gotten to celebrate with so many of the important people in my life. The celebrations started on Saturday when we went out to the Brown Bottle with my parents - it was a joint celebration of my birthday and their 38th wedding anniversary which was the 22nd.

On Monday - my actual birthday (or the devil's birthday as my dad says, but that's another story...) - Chris grilled burgers for dinner and surprised me with an angel food cake. I dreamed that morning that he wished me a happy 26th birthday. When I told him that later, he said "that really was a dream!!" Regardless of what he said in my dream - the numbered candles on the cake did not read 26. Ah well... His gift to me - and I'm quite impressed with this - was a promise to take Latin dancing classes with me. We took ballroom dance before we got married and had a darn good time with it - we weren't the stars of the class, but we had fun. I've been wanting to do Latin dancing for the last few years, but it really hasn't been high on his list - so for him to agree to go with me was very meaningful.

I spent the rest of my birthday evening at work as we had a Board meeting. My friend Carol was so thoughtful, and delivered a cake for us to enjoy in celebration at the meeting. It was nice to sit down with the Board members and the Directors and enjoy the cake and their company - I've been with them for over four years now and have grown into a comfortable relationship with them.

I also was double-flowered. Double-caked and double-flowered. Does it get any better than that? My boss and my dear friend Sarah Joy both sent me flowers. Honestly, I sound so spoiled - I guess I am - is that a bad thing necessarily?

Tuesday night we celebrated with Roger and Diane. They made a delicious dinner for us at their house.

Wednesday night I celebrated with Jackie. We went out to dinner at Mulligans and then she took me to the dog park in Cedar Falls. It was a lot of fun - I can't wait to take Sugey, I know she will love it there!!

Today the celebrations continued with lunch with my friends from work. We had quite a crowd at the OP, and I even got to hold Joy's new baby son Aaron. He is a perfect creation. I must say that I do love the babies. Not that I want any more, but I do love how the new babies are so content to be held and cuddled. Sigh...

So - thanks to everyone that helped to make my birthday special - I must say that this was one of the best ever!!

On to the rest of the family - because although the last rambling bit may have sounded pretty self centered - there are other members in our family!!!

Olivia is camping out with Grandma Diane and Papa Roger in their yard tonight. Should be perfect weather for them!

Elliott and Olivia are both looking forward to their fourth of July parade tomorrow at Daycare. They are also having a craft and bake sale to raise more money for the playground. I spent time tonight making rice krispy treats. It's been a while since I've done that, I forgot how sticky it gets.

Chris is out for a bike ride tonight. It's hard to believe that RAGBRAI is just under a month away.

I don't know if I mentioned that Chris hooked the trailer to my bike, but we've sure been having a good time with that. Tonight after work, Elliott and I hopped - her in the trailer and me on the bike - and rode to the library to check out new books and movies. The school has a summer reading program in collaboration with the Janesville library, so it's really motivated us to keep going to the library. Heck - with all the reruns and no cable - we've all been doing a lot of reading.

Well, enough rambling... on to bigger and better things... Oh, who am I kidding - on to more laundry!!!!!!