Happy Birthday to My Baby Girl

She may be 27 on February 12th, but she will  always be my baby girl and Daughter #3.  She was born on February 12th, but we came home from the hospital on Valentine's Day.  She was my best Valentine ever!

From the moment she could talk this child has kept us in stitches with her crazy since of humor.  Here, she's shell hunting and came upon a jellyfish.

When big sister Rachel was a little worried about spending the night with a girlfriend, Allison volunteered to go with her.   The other Mom was fine with that. They often did, and still do things as a team. 

All together, Me,  Sarah, Daughter #1, my Mom and Rachel and Allison about 1998

At 18, she( the laundry lady)  worked at the Michigan Renaissance Festival with this thief and wench.

After high school and deciding college wasn't for her, she took off on a great adventure.  The little girl that was not afraid to leave home, left Michigan, at 20, for the Teton Mountains of Wyoming.

She spent 4 years traveling back and forth for the "resort" season, but the year she got this photo, she had worked through the winter and experienced all 600 inches of snow.

Allie under the antler arch in Jackson, Wy. She had been home since October for the winter, and then got an offer for a year around position at the Lodge.  Terry drove out with her so she wouldn't have to go alone and then he flew back.  When the season was over and she was missing her family, Rachel flew out and drove home with her.  Little did I know she would then drive it alone the next year.  (That's just not good on a mother's nerves.)

After she left the mountains in the west, she lived with us a while in North Carolina and worked in a restaurant on  the ocean.  Not even the Marines playing volleyball on the beach  could keep her there.

Now she's back in Michigan,working and  sharing a home with Rachel and Tuc.   She inherited one of my traits and that is, we adopt people.  I know of one Christmas, right before she left in April for Wyoming, she was working at a Daycare.  One of the single moms lost her job the week before Christmas.  Allison took her entire check and bought Christmas presents for the 3 children because the Mom had no money.    Allie will go out of her way and inconvenience herself, before she would let down a friend. 

For the girl who's not afraid to wander......

Happy Birthday Allie.... I miss you.

Happy Birthday Daughter Dear

This is Birthday season for my daughters.  There's one more in February and then they will all be done. They get all the adulation and gifts in a few weeks time and then it is a long dry spell for them

January 25th is Daughter #2's Birthday.

Rachel was born when her big sister was 9 years old.  I was thrilled to have another little girl to dress in frills and ribbons.  A another daughter to put her hair in curls and to dress like did my Barbies.

I could dress both the younger girls (Allison is the February Birthday) in their "tourist outfits" (their term for these matchy-matchy things.  I thought they were cute.)  and perm their hair, which now they question my judgement on that bit of fashion as well.  I thought they were cute.  I don't know why they stopped letting me dress them.

But as the years marched by, I learned this daughter was not a frilly kind of girl.

This daughter is a dead serious sports fan that had her own style.  She is our University of Michigan grad and is the one on the other end of Terry's phone on Michigan game days yelling "Go Blue!" among other chioice words, at times.

She's the one that has happened to be available to share concerts,

and cruises.

Now we have to share her with Tacuma (Tuc).  I've said he is a very brave man.  He shares a townhouse with two sisters and he joined us in Washington DC this past May.  We had a wonderful time getting to know him more. Then this past Christmas, Terry and I were guests in their home, for the holidays.   With them in Michigan and us in North Carolina, we don't see each other other, but when we do, there's a lot of "togetherness" in a small period of time.

Rachel is busy working on her Masters program and working full time.

So Happy Birthday Daughter Dear.  I know you will have a marvelsous day!

Happy Birthday Daughter # 1

Happy January 8th  Birthday Girl

This daughter is having a 30 something birthday.  I've told her she still has a few good years left and that I actually liked my 40s.  (No, she's not there yet.)  

I was divorced when she was 2 and remarried the day after she turned 8.  She was in my wedding, (which I will share)

    And I was at her wedding as well.   Now she has 2 little boys that are quickly becoming big boys.
 

I looked for a more current one but this girl hides from the camera as much as I do .   I may have aged but she hasn't.  I wish she would share that secret with her mother.    Have a beautiful day with your family.  I love you.

Happy Birthday Robert Redford

I didn't know that today was Robert's ( we're on a first name basis evidently) birthday until I saw it on World News just now.  Robert Redford is 75 today, Thursday, August 18th. Wow....Like his buddy Paul Newman, this man ages like fine wine.

I have previously posted on how much I liked  Jeremiah Johnson.     There are so many of his characters  that left us ladies a little weak in the knees. What woman didn't fall a little in  love with "Hubbell" in  The Way We Were,    " Jay Gatsby" in The Great Gatsby,  or  "Denys" in Out of Africa.    My husband has long said that if I were given the choice between him and Robert Red,  Indecent Proposal  style,   he would still be sitting on that bench and I would be dancing in that big house with Robert's "John Gage".  Yesterday I posted a question: What movies have made you cry?  My Daughter # 3 came up with one that I had forgotten.  Robert Redford and Michelle Pfeiffer in  Up Close and Personal.   Oh, my gosh.  Pass the whole box of Kleenex please. 

                                                   "Hubbell" from The Way We Were.

This video is the Celine Dion theme " Because You Loved me".  There was only Spanish movie trailer available so here they are, more Celine than Robert.

So many great movies,  All the President's Men, Three Days of the Condor, Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid, The Sting, and  The Natural.    I can go on and on and I think I just did.



Thank you Mr. Redford for your amazing body of work and for being so darn handsome to watch as you  do that work.

The End of Harry

My youngest daughter, at age 26,  went to the 3AM showing of " Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2" today.  The "Harry" party started after work with other Harry fans.  They met at a friends house to watch Harry on DVD and then went to the movie and then went to work this morning afterward.  She had posted on Facebook that being up for 31 hours was worth it.

Our Harry Potter experience started in 1999 when I read a small article in a magazine or a newspaper about the these books causing a big stir in Britain about this little boy that is a wizard.  They were hughly publicized here.  The third book had come out that year as well. So, for Christmas, my younger daughters got the first 3 books.  They were hooked. 

I'm not sure of the publish date, in 2000, of the 4th book, but in July,  Daughter #3 and Terry were interviewed by our local newspaper about Harry Potter fever. By then they girls were 15 and 17.  I thought they were on the older end of Harry fans, but I was wrong.

They convinced their Dad to read the books and soon he was hooked.  I needed more convincing but Harry soon grew on me too.  I became a fan because I saw children in lines at book stores and libraries.  I saw children in restaurants, in movie theaters and at ball games all reading Harry Potter. One of the Daughters took Harry with her to read, to the theater, before "Wicked" started and she was not alone.  There were other Harry books on laps there.  J.K. Rowling, single handily, got people, young and old reading in masses.  

A new book hitting the market caused book stores to hold Harry Potter parties, and to open at 12:01 am to sell books to the line of customers standing outside their doors.  I had never seen anything like it, since Daughter # 1 waited in line overnight to get a Garth Brooks wristband that would allow her to get in another line to get tickets fora concert.  (She did and we all went. Yeah!)  But, I digress.  I had never seen that happen for books.

Harry is not without controversy.  There was some protest concerning Harry being a Wizard and the books promoting witchcraft.  There are witches in Cinderella and Snow White.  I think the kids know Harry is not real.  ( Although, don't try to tell me that Camelot, King Arthur and Merlin weren't real.)  To me these books are very much like the Narnia books. Good vs. Evil is always a struggle.

One of my girlfriends  has a 16 year old son.  She posted on Facebook this morning that the two of them had gone to the midnight show, something they had shared since the first movie came out.  What a wonderful Mom and son adventure.

Somewhere after the newspaper article we "acquired" a male kitty that soon became Harry Potter. I can  truthfully say I  have reached Harry overload, but I still love that the books and the movies are fun, family entertainment.

I applaud J.K. Rowling.  Good job!

Games of Our Childhood

My youngest grandson will be 9 next week.  We share the same birthday so, when I lived close, we shared theme parties of Winnie the Pooh, Dora & Diago, and Spiderman.  Terry has been having an email discussion about Birthday presents with his Mom.  She had mentioned that because baseball play offs were again that night,  our 10 year old grandson had run 27 laps, out side,  around the house in hopes it would make him run faster for his game.  They won, so I guess it worked.  The final game is tonight.

It gets more and more difficult to buy "things" for the boys.  They have all the games out now.  They each have a Nintendo DS and a bunch of games, Rock Band lives in the family room along with the Wii..  One has a real guitar and the other has drums.  They have the outdoor toys.  Powerwing scooters, bikes, snowboards, skate boards,   a full  cemented basketball court in their backyard.

What's a Nana to do?  I used to buy them matching clothes but I promised myself I had to stop doing that when they turned 10, which, one did in April.  (But they looked sooo cute in them.)

This was when they were 4 and 5.  Pa  makes sure they have been wearing University of Michigan apparel since birth. 
Now, too, I have to mail everything so I have to consider that.  So, it is becoming Gift Card time.  The 10 year old reader, Birthday boy, got Barnes & Noble.  Mom suggested the next be Target.  I'm not thrilled with gift cards, but I'm kind of stuck.

 I don't remember getting big birthday presents or any presents, but I'm sure I did.  I don't remember having Birthday celebrations.  Or even a cake, but, I must have.  I remember as a teen making my own cake.  At 9 and 10, I think I was still playing Candyland and later progressed to Life.   We never owned  Life.  I remember wanting it, but you just didn't go out and buy a game "for no reason".  Money was tight.  I played jacks,  jumped rope and collected marbles.  I did get my Barbie for Christmas when I was 10 and I still have her.   She is missing a pinkie finger because I let Daughter  # 1 play with her when she was little and teething evidently.

I remember getting Daughter #1 an Etch-a-Sketch for a Birthay or Christmas present at 7 years old.  She turned it around and over and finally asked, "How do you turn it on?"  I laughed because, funny as that is , she had one of the first hand held video games, that I'm aware of.  "Safari"  It was very basic.  3 skill levels of capture an animal in a cage.  slow - medium - fast.  That's it. 

 My daughter's childhood gifts ran the gamut of boom boxes, Cabbage Patch dolls, TVs for their bedrooms, VCRs and Cd players.  These were the first electronic children.  I know Daughter #2 had to have a Scientific Calculator in high school.  That thing was over $100.00 then, in 2000, and  probably $9.99 now. 

Makes me wonder what's next.