Children are the rainbow of life. Grandchildren are the pot of gold!
Connor turns twenty-five years young; OMG, I can remember the day he was born! The zombies were out in full force; it was a night in the middle of the day, banshees screaming “Go Back! Go Back”, and the bats were flying backwards to see where they had been… A frightful day!
Happy Birthday Connor
We had a full day scheduled, beginning with a garden inspection after planting yesterday. Everything looked wonderful, especially after last night’s rainstorm. Scott was ready to go home, so he leads the way. As you can see, everything was still wet from last night.
Leaving the house for Mary’s
We went to Mary’s and got ready to go to “girls night out “at the Elks Lodge. On the way down the hill, I slowed the car and took a shot at the restaurant we will be going to this evening with Connor. The restaurant is called the orange county mining company, and it sits up on a hill, not as big a hill as Mary’s house sits, though.
OC Mining from Mary’s house
From Mary to the Elks Lodge is a 10-minute drive right down the 55 freeway. We met the guys there, and today we ate inside, thank goodness because it was freezing.
At the lodge!
Here we come, guys, ready or not! We are doing “Girls Night Out” at Santa Ana Elks. Lunch was super, with Bob, Bill, and Mike joining us for a delicious meal inside the lodge today! We first dropped of Scout at Mary’s as he chases and scares the Elks!
What do we do on Girl’s Night Out? We cavort and do silly things. Today, we have to have our own flower child… Mary brought flowers for Bridget, and Mike took the flowers to Bridget after our meeting.
Our own Flower Child!
As you can probably tell, there’s a lot of teasing going on. Mary got a little red-faced and decided not to listen to anymore, as evidenced by her fingers plugged in her ears. I should mention, nothing is said at the table that we wouldn’t say to our mothers!
Guys being guys!
Poor Mary, getting the Royal Raspberries.
They felt bad… NOT!!
Mary said her napkin worked quite well, and she kind of looks cute in it!
Did we say something?
The food at the Elks Lodge is really pretty good; Mary is taking good care of me and has introduced me to this thing called “salad.” It’s an amazing dish with very few calories. And when you throw some salmon on it, not half bad.
I am learning to share and eat a little bit of food!
After 90 minutes of cavorting, we all said goodbye and headed back to our respective homes. Mary and I had some cooking to do before it got too late because we promised Jan some cauliflower and cheese, our version of mac & cheese. We returned to Mary’s, where she made a batch of cauliflower and cheese for Jan. We picked up some other goodies for our St. Patrick’s Day party next week.
Amazing formations all day long.
Mary decided it would be much safer if she went into the market with me, knowing that I come out with all sorts of stuff and generally more than we can use when I go into the market.
We made a quick stop at Albertson’s Market and came home with $200 in groceries? Go figure!
We love the cloud formations, and they were really spectacular after the rainstorm. Do you see an elephant or a jet airplane in the clouds? We do! But we’re old; we see all sorts of weird things.
See the elephant??
OK, what do you see here?? We hope it’s nothing because we can’t see anything either; it was just a spectacular white cloud blue sky greys street snapshot on our way to Jan’s house.
We love the cloud formations.
Before we got home, Mike sent us a picture of Bridget enjoying her flowers that Mary sent her.
Bridgette loved the flowers.
We went by Jan’s house and visited with her for a few minutes delivering piping hot cauliflower and cheese. We then decided we would stop by the Rib Trader restaurant and visit our favorite bartender; alas, the place was closed, so we don’t know what’s exactly happening. We placed a call to him but haven’t heard from him yet.
Time for dinner, we got in the car and headed down the hill to the Orange County Mining Co. to celebrate Connor’s 25th year on this planet. The sun was setting as we pulled into the parking lot. I had to stop the car and take a couple of snapshots as it was a pretty spectacular sunset. We got there about 30 minutes early and decided to have an artichoke and a glass of wine. We texted Connor and told him we got there early, and he said he was already on his way, yay,
Nice view of the city from OC Mining Company
The four of us laughed and giggled the whole time, really enjoying ourselves.
It’s my birthday; you have to be nice to me!
Kerick thought she ordered the small prime rib, but it looks like she got half of the cow. She’ll have no problem putting it away; she’s young. If Mary and I ordered a steak that big, we would be chewing on it for a week.
Talk about a slab of steak, OMG!
We were at a steakhouse, so must have steak it was steak it must have potatoes with potatoes you must have a glass of wine, it all fits.
The steak girl in action.
Kerick and Dr. Mary have always hit it off, and they were enjoying themselves this evening. It seems like Connor and I are fortunate guys.
The girls got along fine!
We headed home, which was 1.1 miles from the restaurant. After our bottle of Cakebread, we were ready to crash.
