8/23/15 My Birthday Weekend Was Good?

    What can I say, my birthday weekend was good.  Being a grown up, it's not the gifts I look forward to, it's the company and good food that make a night worthwhile.  My folks drove up Thursday evening and were here through the weekend.  Even though I spent a great deal of energy the weeks leading up to this weekend, my pool was clean, but the water was just a bit too cool for swimming friday night.  My dad got his feet in, but I don't believe he went in all the way.  Chubs did manage to swim, and then he was being a pain for me to join him.  I made pina coladas for awhile, but after I got drinks for everybody, I tried.  I stepped in and it felt like freezing water.  Weird, but I guess the cool front and the fact that thursday and friday were cool days made the pool lose its heat.

    While all that was going on, the grill was cooking, I always start too late, because I didn't turn on grill until 7:00pm and best I can say, we were eating wings and jalapeno bombers around 9:00pm.  The rest of the meat came out closer to 10:00pm.  We normally eat late, but I didn't want to be feeding my guests so late.  Eventually, we grilled fajitas, sweetbreads, three varieties of sausage, some pork pieces that were already seasoned at HEB and some chicken.

    We didn't have a lot of guests, my folks, my younger brother, girlie, her aunt and cousin, then later girlie went and got her bf.  Everyone left with a full belly, finishing the night with a slice of coconot cake from Mandola's Italian Market and some ice cream.  There was some alcohol involved, so we were up late.  We ended up going to bed around 2:30am.

    Today (Saturday) was supposed to involve some shopping at BartonMall, we did go, around 2:00pm.  But we had a scheduled dinner for 6:00pm.  Boy was difficult, acted like he didn't want anything from the normal stores we shop at.  Instead of losing my cool, I just said alright.  He got a couple new shirts throughout the summer, I guess Mr. Cool doesn't care for new clothes anymore.  I, on the other hand, found my type of shorts that I wear all the time at Dillard's on sale.  I bought three, at $20 a piece.

    This pretty much was all the time we had before we had to get going for our dinner reservation.  We left mall, picked up my brother at bookstore, picked up my Dad at the house, along with my son's friend who also joined us for lunch.  Although we had reservations at 6:00pm, it still took another 45 minutes of waiting.  Manager said the party sitted at one of "our" tables took over an hour to eat their meal.  They then got dessert, then took another hour.  They just sat there.  We ended up getting another table on the other side of the one that was already empty for us.  After we sat down, those people were still there another 45 minutes.  The only good thing this did, was the manager felt compelled to give us some appetizers.  We sat down and within minutes, both tables we were sat at got three different appetizers, complimentary.  I looked at the menu, and these were all $20-$30 plates.  At this point, I didn't mind waiting awhile.
    We finished the night at home, Wife had got my brother in law and me separate birthday cakes, but different than the one from Friday night.  So we had three cakes to choose from, coconut, carrot, and strawberry cakes, along with ice cream, and some pistachio pudding mix with the fruit mix and stuff.  I enjoyed the carrot and strawberry cakes with a cup of coffee.  It was a delicious weekend, thank you all for the warm thoughts and the birthday wishes.