I just wanted to post a quick thank you to my family for the most wonderful birthday.

I can't remember a year when the weather on my birthday was crummy. Imagine my disappointment this morning when I woke to grey skies and rain. Lily looked out the window and said "Oh, the rain. It's raining." And it was. After taking Lily to Buppa's, I went for my pedicure. It was a nice relaxing couple of hours, but the best part was walking out of the salon to pure blue sky and sunshine.

I spent the afternoon shopping, and then headed home to Mom and Dad's for dinner. Just as I arrived in the front, my mom arrived in the back. We had a simple family dinner, no dessert. (I get ice cream cake with the in-laws on Sunday.) I kinda knew what my gifts were beforehand, but there were some great surprises. My sweet hubby showed up with 2 dozen roses, and a handful of scratch tickets. In true Carbol fashion, I only won on one ticket - a dollar. Whoopee! My brother always manages to find the neatest gifts. He found me a lovely bag that will be the purse I use for outings with Lily. It has 4 pockets on the outside (for snacks, according to Lily) and will hold all sorts of guess-what-mommy-has-in-her-purse gear without screaming "I have a sippy cup, raisins, 4 broken crayons, 2 diapers and a change of clothes in here!" He also included a pair of moss green mittens on a string. But the best part is they have appliques of Frankenstein on them. I will take a picture and post later, because if you google "picture of mittens with Frankenstein", you get this.






The rest of my gifts included 2 new shovels (thanks Bryan!), a tree that still needs to be picked out and planted, a day or 2 of labor to build my new lattice panels, a cast iron chameleon to attach to said fence panels, and a beautiful glass pendant that my mom had my aunt bring back from Italy.

As we wound down the day, I remarked to Bryan that in my 36 years I have yet to spend a birthday without my family. And that's the greatest gift of all.