December 22-23, 2012 Weekend, My Birtday Dinner, a Hat Delivery, Breakfast with Mom, and a Few More Hats

First of all I want to thank everyone from the bottom of my heart for all the birthday wishes. I was truly blessed with all the sweet comments here and on Facebook. I usually always reply to all your comments but I decided to include the thank you in my blog post instead since I ran out of time. Anyway, thanks again; all of your comments made my day even more special.

By the way my birthday dinner was amazing. These are the people that John invited to share my birthday dinner with us: Jennifer,

sister-in-laws and brother-in-laws; Ricci and CW,

Andrea and Patrick,

sister-in-law Helen, and my niece Maria (I had to steal this picture from Facebook; because the ones that we took at the restaurant were all blurry). The restaurant John took me to is Bella Vita Bistro and you can read about it here. John had been there with his sister Ricci for lunch and really liked it so he wanted to take me there. I’m sure you all will get a kick out of this; I’m really a very boring person and I have a hard time trying different things especially when it comes to food. I find a few places that I like and I don’t want to go anywhere else that I have never been before. That’s where John comes in, he is totally the opposite; he likes to try different restaurants and food all the time. Anyway I let him choose the restaurant for my birthday dinner and I threw caution to the wind and said to myself, “oh well what do I have to lose, according to the Mayan calendar this was my last day anyway?”

I dined on a Caesar salad,

everyone else had the house salad,

my main course was Chicken Parmigiana,

and Jennifer’s was Chicken Bella Vita, with horseradish mashed potatoes and sautéed asparagus. (which she shared with me)

the waitress also brought me a little dessert pastry and a lit candle for me to blow out. The whole table sang happy birthday to me plus the other people in the room.

Then just before we left the chef came out and sang “Happy Birthday Baby” a capella. John actually caught me off guard and really surprised me with that. I think I even had tears in my eyes? I asked him later how he knew the chef sang and he said that he had stopped by the restaurant earlier in the week and asked if they ever did anything special for birthdays; like a piece of cake or if the wait staff gathered together to sing happy birthday? The person he was talking to was the co-owner and wife of the chef. She told him that they could do a little dessert thing for me and she could maybe do something better than the wait staff singing. She said that her husband the chef loves to sing and if he had time he would come to the table and sing his rendition of Happy Birthday. John asked her how much it would be and she told him that there was no charge and that her husband just loves to sing for people and their enjoyment is all the payment he needs. Then as we were leaving the restaurant I ran into my friend Marla, her husband Randy and her sister Cheryl. Marla is one my schoolmates who shares my birthday and they were there celebrating hers as well, I just wished I would have known she was there so that I could have shared the special song that the chef sang to me. Anyway, I highly recommend if you live in Wichita or visit here that Bella Vita be one of the restaurants that you try. Cibo molto buono!! (no I don’t know Italian so don’t ask me any other words, I had to look this up on Google) 🙂

Saturday morning I made an owl hat for my Megan, now I hope she still wants one because I have added it to her Christmas gifts. I love the buttons and just wished I could remember where I picked them up so that I could go get more. 😉

I also made another sock monkey hat that would fit about a 7-12 year old. I’m not sure why I made it but I would really like to continue making these hats so that I can have a good stash of them for the market in October.

I asked Jennifer if she wanted to have lunch with me on Saturday and drive me to Twist to deliver Mimi’s penguin hat. Oh my gosh Mimi is so adorable anyway but with the hat on she was uber-adorable. (I know that’s not a word but I couldn’t think of anything else)

Saturday and into Sunday morning I finished up a bowl that I made for Jennifer for Christmas. I made it from a pattern in the Crochet Noro book that I just had to have.

I didn’t use Noro, but I did have this Bernat Mosaics yarn that is 100% acrylic and it looks just like Noro. I love how the bowl turned out and I can’t wait to make some more of the projects that are in the book.

Sunday morning I went to breakfast with Mom and while we were at our little neighborhood restaurant “Emilia’s” one of the waitresses ordered a sock monkey hat for her 3 year old grandson.

When I arrived home and while visiting with Mom I made another sock monkey hat.

After Mom left our good friends Gina and Kevin stopped in to pick up a hat that they had ordered for their granddaughter, Gina fell in love with this hat so I gave it to her and she promised that she would wear it. Gina just got out of the hospital a few days ago after suffering a heart attack, I’m so glad that the doctors found the right medication for her and hopefully she is on the road to a speedy recovery. I spent the rest of my afternoon crocheting on a triangle granny cowl from the Noro crochet book but I haven’t completed it yet so no photos of it. I hope you all had a wonderful weekend and I hope everyone is ready for Christmas since it will be here anyway. I want to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas!