Birthdays and other stuff

Wow...it's hard to believe my BABY just turned 9 years old yesterday! Time sure does fly, doesn't it? My mom and dad went away for the weekend, so we had a birthday dinner on Friday at their house, along with cake and presents. She got a new pair of jammies, a few outfits, some hair accessories, some undies and socks, and a really neat Littlest Pet Shop board game.

On Saturday my boyfriend, Dennis, and I took both of my daughters and one of the birthday girl's friends to do Cosmic bowling. It's the coolest thing. They turn out all the lights in the bowling alley and have strobes, blacklights, lasers, and smoke. It's also a really good deal. For only $9.99 per person, you get two hours of bowling including shoe rental. During regular "open bowl" times, that $9.99 would only get you shoe rental and one game, which equals about 15 minutes of bowling. After bowling, we went shopping and then took the kids to Souplantation for dinner, where we all stuffed ourselves way past the normal limits of human suffering (what else are buffets for???).

On Sunday, Dennis had to leave early so he could get home in time for work (did I mention he works with dead people?). I took my daughters out to Hometown Buffet for brunch to celebrate the actual birthday date. A word of advice - NEVER have two meals in a row at buffets. I felt like the ultimate hog and I will never do that again.

We have more celebrating coming up on Friday when my birthday rolls around. People used to ask me if I hated having my birthday so close to Halloween, because a lot of the time I would get Halloween related gifts. Anyone who knows me well enough now, though, knows that I LOVE to get Halloween things for my birthday. Halloween is my all-time favorite holiday. I like it better than any other holiday...even Christmas.

What? Oh...the dead people thing! Dennis drives a van for a mortuary. He picks up bodies from the morgues and delivers them to the mortuary. He morbidly jokes that he likes his job because his passengers don't tell him how to drive and he still gets to use the carpool lane. I haven't checked that one out myself, but he tells me that he's had a police officer tell him it's true. "There's nothing in the law that says your passenger has to be breathing."

Thumbelina is doing pretty good! Her fur is starting to grow back in the places where she lost it due to the skin condition. She's gobbling down canned kitten food like a champ and bouncing all over the house, terrorizing the bigger cats. Her favorite place to be is either snuggled up with our youngest orange cat, Pixie (who's about 4 months old), in the kitty bed my dad gave her or else napping on my shoulder. I'm not sure how she's going to handle getting too big to perch on my shoulder. It seems to be one of her favorite places to be. I am going to introduce dry food softened with a little of her formula in the next couple of days. I'll try to get a more updated picture of her posted ASAP.

Well, dear family and friends, the time has come for me to end this babble and get back to work. I wish you a blessed day.