Happy 40th!

Yesterday was Ron's 40th birthday. He kind of had a birthday weekend, though.



He's been doing some woodworking lately and has decided his midlife crisis should involve power tools. I can live with that. We added some birthday money to some he saved and he bought a very nice table saw from someone on Craigslist. He and a friend drove down to pick the saw up Friday evening. It took several friends to carry it down to the basement, and it was rather entertaining to watch them attempt it!






Ron planned to have some of the neighborhood guys over for poker Sunday night, so we did cake and presents Saturday evening. The kids decorated the cake. They decided to write "HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!" but Tyler didn't plan things out too well when he started. Instead it evolved into what you see here, which I think is much funnier. They thought it was pretty funny, too.







































It is hard to fit 40 candles on a cake, but it's even harder to light them all!! We didn't actually have 40 candles, so 37 had to be close enough. That cake generated a lot of heat!

























The kids gave Ron some workshop-related presents. One of the items Danielle gave him was some steel wool. Not one to miss a teachable moment (ha!), Ron showed the kids how to light steel wool with a battery.
















Danielle made 2 batches of brownies, almost entirely by herself, for poker night. Now that the kids are old enough (& tall enough) to take a more active role in cooking and baking, I find that I just don't think about asking them. Usually they are tired from school & homework and just want to do their own thing. Likewise, I just want to get dinner ready and on the table. It was fun to have her in the kitchen with me. She whipped up some brownies while I was making dinner. It's always amusing to watch her break the eggs. She's always worried she's going to make a mess. One day early last week when I was not feeling well, I was baking something and dropped an egg. Instinctively, I moved my hip in to catch it between the counter and myself (which was the exact WRONG thing to do) and ended up crushing it all down the front of the cupcoards, the floor, and myself. I don't think Danielle could have done any worse! Anyway, Danielle's brownies turned out great, and poker night went well, too.


I thought it was a good birthday weekend. Hopefully the birthday boy thought so, too.