Closing out March

March has been a super-busy month! Danny continued celebrating St. Patrick's Day nightly by dressing in his kilt and Irish hat

and posing for me while I cooked dinner.

He and I planted our front porch garden,

with the special addition of a cactus and a healing aloe plant (in case someone touches the cactus). 

Meanwhile, Megan received special recognition at school for getting good grades for most of the year,

and while I volunteered in the kitchen at church, she learned that she loves to help decorate.

Although it was busy, we made time to do some things we enjoy.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Since St. Patrick's Day was on Tuesday, we didn't have a big celebration on the day. George and the kids did, however, meet me at the University Center Club for their St. Patrick's Day lunch buffet, complete with corned beef, potatoes and cabbage, and special ultra-green smoothies.

Can you tell Danny loved the smoothies? His teeth have a decidedly green tint to them.   We had a great lunch and an even better time together.

ALTCON 2015!

We attended this year's ALTCON science fiction "conference" on March 14th, just a week after the Jewish Food Festival. Unfortunately, the decisions to move the date to March (it has been in April the last few years), to move to a different location (fairgrounds instead of civic center), and to not advertise as extensively as in previous years all caused it to be much smaller than it had previously been. This means that the Creamers enjoyed it more! Not only that, but they had my favorite food truck (Valhalla Grill) selling lunch!

We had a nice time walking around looking at the booths and seeing all of Megan's friends dressed in their cosplay outfits. The highlight? Artists were available to commission to draw any superhero you like. This time, Megan asked to be drawn as Wonder Woman.

I think he did an excellent job, don't you?

Matzo Ball Soup is yummy!

After all of the birthday activity, we had about a two-week period where we were feeling lost, bored and didn't know what to do with ourselves. What better way to resolve those issues than by attending a festival, right? Temple Israel held the Jewish Food Festival on March 8th, and we had an awesome time listening to music and eating great Jewish food like corned beef, potato knisches, hummus and pitas, and my favorite, Matzo Ball soup. I loved it so much that we stocked up on some frozen containers that they were selling too. Unfortunately, they had no latkes, but since our cousin Matt makes the best ones anyway (or so he says, but I'm inclined to believe him), we'll just have to wait for next summer for those. 

A very Happy Birthday to my loves

February 19th was George's birthday, and for lunch I took him to Ted's Montana Grill for his favorite of all meals, steak. While we were there, we saw Atu Hand,

a former Olympic Judo fighter and son of Fred Hand, a pretty famous Judo fighter in his own right. George and Atu fought in Judo matches and practiced together back in the day, and it's always good to see him.

On Saturday the 21st (also known as Paw Paw Gilbert's Birthday - Happy Birthday, Dad!), we did some fun local stuff to celebrate George's 45th birthday and Megan's 15th birthday (on the 24th). We always love visiting Bradley's Country Store, and we get great pictures out there. This day was no exception.

Later on, we celebrated with our friends, the Mazeracs (Kim's birthday was on the 18th) who brought Smallcakes for the occasion.  We had a lot of fun, but we were so busy having fun that I unfortunately did not get many pictures of the birthday boy and girl opening presents, etc. I will do better next time!

Happy Birthday to all of my February folks. I love you all!