My birthday

Earlier this week I was thinking about writing something about the contrast between my birthday and Christ's -- one happens on the shortest day of the year in the midst of the cold and dark, and the other celebrates LIGHT....  But then this year my birthday fell on a particularly lovely, warm day!  So maybe I'll write that blog post another year.

In addition to the beautiful gift of warm weather, I also was blessed this year by gifts from those around me... including these:

I also was able to enjoy a very lovely lunch with several friends (with long, uninterrupted, grown-up conversations!), and a yummy dinner that night, made by Pete!

We were happy to have Dad, Keiko, Sammy and Sophie with us, too.

 And to top it all off - -a peppermint ice cream cake!

I was very thankful for this beautiful day!