Ben's Birthday

Recently we celebrated Ben’s birthday! His celebration ended up being spread over several days due to other things going on in our schedule at the time.

The birthday boy at breakfast. He got to open one gift in the morning, which turned out to be a book on Presidential Facts from Grandma and Grandpa. He really loves it!

For our special breakfast, Mom made coffee cake which was delicious as always.

After breakfast, we left for a day of surprises! Our first destination was a local nursery that everyone loves to visit. They have an old house, lots of beautiful landscaping, and the favorite attraction: a pond full of goldfish and frogs.

After we looked around and I purchased a few items for my garden (post coming about that soon!) we drove to the Secretary of State office where I applied for my level 2 driver’s license.

Then we drove to our favorite fruit and vegetable stand for the first time this year. We bought lots of Michigan produce including strawberries (post coming on what we did with those soon), asparagus, radishes, tomatoes, and a few more plants and seeds for my garden.

By that time we were getting hungry, so we went to a local park to have a picnic lunch! We ate egg salad sandwiches, popcorn, apple slices, and Hershey’s® chocolate kisses. It was very relaxing!

We stayed at the park for awhile and then drove on towards the library, where we returned books and spent some time relaxing and reading. We have all gotten very familiar with our favorite sections of the library!

Then it was time for an extra special treat! Several months back, our cousins gave us Cold Stone Creamery gift cards. We’ve been waiting for warmer weather to make good use of them. The ice cream was very satisfying!

After our stop at Cold Stone, we went to the grocery store to pick up a few things for Ben’s special birthday dinner. We were going to have the dinner another night since Dad couldn’t be home for dinner tonight.

So we ate a delicious simple supper of Broccoli salad (recipe coming soon!) and cornbread while watching a movie in the living room. It was a scrumptious meal!

The next night, we continued the celebration, with Ben’s requested birthday dinner: sirloin steak hot off the grill, garlic mashed potatoes, tomatoes, and asparagus with parmesan cheese. It was delicious and colorful!

Then it was time for birthday cake!

The Pastel de Tres Leches cake was very rich. But since it’s a refrigerated cake, it was creamy and refreshing.

Then Ben opened the gifts we had for him. In this photo, he is opening a DVD called “Normandy: A Final Farewell.” It was a great movie (as a fair warning, it is a bit of a tear-jerker.)

Another special gift was a book published by Reader’s Digest in 1964 called “Secrets & Spies: Behind the Scenes Stories of World War II.” It looks like a really good book!

I’m so thankful for Ben and all the wonderful years we’ve had together with him! He is a wonderful brother and I look forward to seeing the plans God has in store for him in this upcoming year!