April 14th Birthday Party

    We held a joint birthday party yesterday for my mother, Cozette Sinor Tunnell, my grand daughter, Lilly Kang, and me.  Mom turned 81, I turned 61, and Lilly turned 5. I have another grand daughter, Cozette Romero, who also shares that birthday and who turned 4 yesterday.  Unfortunately, the younger Cozette lives in Rockville, Maryland and couldn't make it to the party.  It was a grand occasion  simply having a good portion of my children and grand children here.  We had nine adults and thirteen children present. That is more than half the total clan. My wife prepared a fine meal of spaghetti, garlic bread, and salad, suitable for feeding a multitude.  We all shared one birthday cake with one symbolic candle.  I think 147 candles would have been a bit much.  The cake was the perfect size as I think it was all gone at the end of the evening. After cake and ice cream I enjoyed a lengthy game of "Mexican Train" with Mom, Sarah, Beth, Autumn, Chloe, and Hannah. Mexican train is a domino game my mother had picked up for Sarah during her annual winter migration to Arizona.

Mexican Train Dominoes

     I really love just listening to my grand children enjoying each other's company.  Its wonderful that so many of them are such close friends. It makes family gatherings pretty sweet. While we played dominoes, the kids had a great time with minimal friction. The biggest attraction of the day for the kids was not the cake and ice cream, but Mrs. Buzz Saw's four kittens. Linda told me that each of them has been named about 4 or 5 times by different grand children. What makes that even more complicated is the fact that the three white kittens have pretty much identical markings.  I'm thinking it might be a little easier to distinguish between them when they are a little older. Yesterday they were just one week old and one of them was just starting to open its eyes.  Sarah will probably have to check closely before she goes back to Oregon to make sure there isn't any kitten smuggling going on.

     Sarah's girls seem to really enjoy Linda's banana yellow tandem bikes.  They got a lot of use yesterday afternoon and this morning. They are a little bit of a challenge to ride. Its a bit like learning to ride a bike all over again.