40th Birthday Weekend

Hello Everyone!!

It has been a good weekend. I turned 40 this past Saturday. It was kind of bittersweet. I really really miss Mark and wish he could have been home. Unfortunately, my birthday wish didn't come true! Of course I knew it wouldn't LOL. Anyway, my friend Kris and her son Ryan and my boys took me out to dinner at Henry's! What a fun time! I splurged and shared an ice cream sundae with Patrick! I have been dieting since August 3rd and am down 11 lbs, so I really wanted to be careful. But that sundae was soooo good!! After dinner we were going to go see "Mama Mia" but decided that it was such a great evening we would head over to Sergeant Creek and so some fishing. We were there for about five minutes before I noticed the bear poop on the river bank. Fresh & warm bear poop (Matt put his hand above it to verify the warm part!). Then I noticed a salmon flopping by the shore and it was all bloody. That is when Kris noticed the bear in the marsh not far from us. So we slowly left the area for the car. We drove down towards the Russian River and noticed some people looking out over the marsh land so we pulled off and got out and there he was!! Our first Kodiak bear!!! He didn't seem that big from far away. But as you can tell, as he got closer to us, he got bigger. All in all it was a fun evening, I truly wish all of my family had been here for it, but as my Grandma Gray would have said, "if wishes were pennies we would be rich!"

The scarf you see above and to the left is one I had been working on for about three weeks. I bought the hand dyed wool yarn in Ketchikan when mom had come for her visit. I finally finished it last night! I think it turned out beautiful!

The crock pot above is my birthday present! 5 Qt crock pot!! It is really nice and I love it!!!!

The birthday cake, I made from scratch! I was going to put an nice fattening butter cream frosting on it, but opted out of that for a nice sprinkle of powdered sugar. I have only eaten a very thin slice! LOL