Tag: #birthdayfun

Weekend Coffee Share; October 24, 2021

On By DianaIn Living life, weekend coffee share47 Comments
Welcome! My sister and my best friend went in together to buy me this cool mug for my birthday! I LOVE IT!

Howdy! How are you doing, can I get you a cup of coffee or tea? It’s very gloomy outside but it’s a good gloomy because we have lots of clouds and are expecting some much needed rain! Tomorrow it is to rain almost all day and we really need the rain in our dry climate here in California. I have some small cupcakes for a snack to go with the coffee, can I get you one? I didn’t make them but they are really good. It was my birthday this last week and my hubby picked up the cupcakes so I didn’t have to bake for myself. I’m the only baker at home. 😀

I can’t believe there is only one more week left of October, but it’s been a very fun month. A couple weeks ago I went to Arizona to see my son and his family and I was there with my daughter who bought tickets to a comedy show. I went to babysit for that evening and it was so fun watching movies with my grand daughter and grand son. Well, my grand son went to bed and was super easy to put down which I was thankful for since he’s 19 months old and I know at that age they can be a handful. But they have a wonderful routine and that helps so much with young children. I had a blast and I’ll share a few photos.

My daughter enjoying Wolfie kitty who use to be her kitty, but now lives with my son. And a blurry selfie! Kids just don’t sit still!

Wolfie remembers my daughter!! He slept with her while we stayed the two nights for our weekend visit. For those of you who follow me will remember Wolfie’s brother Dublin is my son and daughter-in-laws kitty. My daughter tried to have Wolfie live with her but he was a handful and actually was eating her guinea pig hay and there were other problems and so we did some kitty swapping. I took 2 cat’s my son had (two sisters) and Wolfie was brought to live with his brother in AZ. Now my daughter adopted a beautiful black kitty she named Evie. We are all happy and the cats are all happy too! Thought I’d fill ya’ll in again and for any new followers. Haha, it was a bit of kitty drama at the time when we went through the exchanges!!

These brothers still lay together all the time! This is my photo of them sleeping on my bed when I visited AZ! Adorable!

I had such a nice weekend and when I returned home my sister from Idaho came back to town with her husband because it was her husbands 40th High School reunion. It was so fun because this is my sister who also rides horses and who is the sister I adopted my horse Zack. She couldn’t take him to Idaho, so I kept him and had him until earlier this year when he passed. Now, her and I are having fun with my new horse Murphy! Together she is reminding me about bringing along a young horse. Since he is almost 3 1/2 years old now, he is learning so much every time I ride. He is like a sponge, soaking up all that he is learning. I was able to take some photos when Sharon rode and I will share a video I took as well. We had so much fun as we also took him out on some trail rides too!

My sister riding Murphy! She and I ride alike and he was such a good boy for her. He is so relaxed and calm. He is a joy to ride!

Can I get you a refill on your coffee or tea? We have some Halloween candy too. We do not have Trick or Treaters in our neighborhood because it is considered a rural area. We do not have any street lights and the houses are a bit far apart so we do not have any kids that walk any of the neighborhoods in this area. They all usually drive to local residential areas to Trick or Treat. So we usually buy ourselves a couple of small bags of candy and we buy our favorites! Usually they are chocolates of some kind. YUMMY!

Back to the horses, sorry I got off on a tangent but you know, candy is always worth talking about and more importantly consuming! Haha! I was so happy I took my phone with me into the arena when I asked my sister if she wanted to ride Murphy. That’s when I was able to take these photos and the video I will share. After the arena we went out on a short trail ride and I was able to take a couple of photos out there as well. I am so proud of him and I thanked my sister so much for all her help and encouragement as he is coming along nicely.

My sister riding Murphy and he is so relaxed and now I have him on video cantering to the right. He is doing great!

I am so enjoying my time here with you and I am also enjoying celebrating my birthday this last week. My family in Arizona sent me a bouquet of flowers, they are so beautiful and smell wonderful! They arrived Saturday and my daughter sent me some fun Star Wars things as I Love all things Star Wars! Including a coloring book, The Princess Diaries by Carrie Fisher to read and these cool light saber earrings! Yes, I am a geek when it comes to Star Wars!! My hubby got me a cool Disney cookbook. I have a small collection of specialty cookbooks so this is a nice addition. I will finish up with these last photos.

I am a happy Grandma, Mom, wife and horse crazy gal! Thank you Natalie for hosting the #weekendcoffeeshare! I hope you all have a wonderful week ahead and thank you for visiting with me today. 😀

~Diana ❤

Weekend Coffee Share; Better Late Than Never!

On By DianaIn Living life, Love being Grandma, weekend coffee share25 Comments
Welcome to my weekly coffee share! I have a lot to share and I am a bit late to the party!

Can I get you a cup of coffee or tea? I am trying to catch up and didn’t want this last day to share in this group to slip by without sharing the most wonderful week. To be honest, this whole month of October has been really good to me. Last week was incredibly busy with family in town as we celebrated my 60th birthday! I still have some cake, would you like a piece? It was delicious. I will share some birthday photos as I have a lot to share. It was a beautifully fun, very horsey celebration. I felt like a kid again! A great way to feel when you are turning 60! 😀 😀 😀

A very HAPPY grandma and papa, little Teddy and cutie pie, Alice!
Not every day you turn 60! What a FUN day!

The necklace I am wearing in the photo is a gift from my son and wife and it is stirrups, which are on an English saddle. I love it! They also gave me a beautiful scarf with horses on it and my hubby got me wireless earbuds. My daughter gave me a cookbook from a favorite cook and the picture of her and my granddaughter which is behind the cake in the first photo! (You scrolled up and looked! I did! Haha) My sister who lives out of state, her gift was all our food that we ordered from a wonderful BBQ restaurant. Oh my, I hope I am not forgetting anything as it was a wonderful day, with beautiful weather, food and fun times! Here is the horses with Alice!

Chloe just Loves children. She actually really Loves people!! Sweet Girls these two!!

Zack (my other horse) is around too, but I didn’t catch him in any of these photos. We didn’t have a lot of time to ride and so we walked around a bit and gave Chloe pats and hugs. Alice helped me put together their grain buckets and then put them away as we needed to head back to the party. I am glad we had this time together. I also am glad the weather was nice, not too hot or cold. Just perfect! I want to share the next day after my birthday. My daughter, son, hubby and I went to Long Beach for lunch and then went to the Aquarium of the Pacific. Only the outdoor exhibits were open and we had to buy tickets at a reserved time which is how they control the crowds. So there were not too many there at one time for safety.

Love the dolphin fountain out front of aquarium. And Penguins!
My hubby and I standing and my daughter and son sitting! ❤ ❤ ❤

It truly was the most wonderful week. I forgot to mention I got to babysit baby Teddy Monday before the birthday party. It was so wonderful to have him for the day as my son and wife with her side of the family went to the San Diego Zoo with Alice. I just have to share a couple more photos, I can’t help myself!

Loving my grandkids!!

They are just so adorable. But before I close I had told you that I had a surprise and I didn’t realize when I mentioned this surprise what it all entailed. Because of this I thought it best to wait to share until I had 100% confirmation and now that it is all confirmed and all the important people know I can share my surprise! It is a surprise because I have made a decision to look for another job. It’s a surprise because I can’t believe it, but YES! I have acquired a new job and it is a day shift position. I can write a novel about my job history (I will share that in a separate post soon!) as I think it may be interesting and something that would be fun to have written down. I have been working night shift (grave yard shift) for 30+ years with only a couple of breaks in between. How have I done this for so long you ask? Perseverance!

I am not sure why I thought nights are the best hours and to be honest I have been a supervisor at this laboratory working nights for over 15 years. The money is good and I just always thought this was the best for us, the family. But as I am getting older, and a bit burnt out, the stress of supervising and working night shift led me to the decision that I should look for a day shift position. I am beyond EXCITED!! I shouldn’t be surprised I got the job because it is a laboratory job in Chemistry, my cup of tea and I will be taking care of instruments and working swing shift so I can take care of my horses in the mornings. No more night shift, and another plus, no more weekend work! I won’t have any excuse to missing another Weekend Coffee share again!! I just have 2 weeks to go and I will be like other humans, and living a more normal life! YAY!

I had a lot to share today. I may be writing about the difference between night shift hours and living and working day shift and sleeping at night! Haha, I still can’t believe it! I owe a lot of this wonderful decision to my daughter. Everything just fell into place and that’s my surprise!! 😀

MY SWEET GIRLS!!!

Thank you for sharing coffee or tea with me today. My life is full of changes. I know changes can be hard but I think changes are good. I was getting so burnt out at my job. I was also feeling like I was not taking care of myself by working these crazy hours. I started to think why don’t I take care of myself? I worry so much about others, I forget about myself. I think we should all take some time and look at our situations and see if there isn’t some way to make things better. After all, we are worth it! ❤ ❤ ❤

Excited, Loving 60 Grandma!

~Diana

Weekend Birthday FUN!

On By DianaIn Barn stories, Family is important, Horse stories, Living life5 Comments
My Birthday cake made by my good friend Colleen! She is a friend at our barn and loves to make the most delicious birthday cakes!

My birthday was October 21st and I have to say I had a ton of fun this birthday weekend. Colleen at the stables has been making cakes for each of us and we have had some fine cakes as she always changes it up and makes something entirely different each time. This cake was featured on Facebook called Lemon Blueberry Cheesecake Cake including the recipe and Colleen asked me if I’d like this cake for my birthday. YES! I said, if you are up for it as I knew it would be a bit complicated. Colleen said it was a challenge with a cake layer top and bottom, and a blueberry cream cheese filling. The cream cheese icing was lemon cream cheese and oh my, this was SO DELICIOUS! ❤

This was one of the best cakes I’ve tasted in awhile. LOVE homemade cakes!
I think my lens was dirty. I took this photo out because there is a distortion in it, but I decided to put it back in just because I think its fun to share even though its not perfect. Nothing is ever perfect right?
Getting ready to eat cake! Thank you all ladies, making my birthday weekend special!

I had a wonderful ride this weekend. I rode by myself on Chloe and ponied Zack along side and we just went on a short ride as I had to get back so we could eat cake. My birthday wasn’t until Monday but there are ladies that work day shift so we had the cake on Saturday to include as many as possible. It all worked out great! There is another birthday being celebrated today, so more cake on the way to my tummy. It seems October is a busy month for birthdays, so here is a shout out to ALL celebrating birthdays this month, HAPPY BIRTHDAY YA’LL!

Zack walking next to me on the trail!
The best view EVER! Looking between the ears of my horse!

As I am writing this I am thinking I should have started out with the SURPRISE of my life as seriously, I do not get surprised often which is a good thing. Maybe this is a fun way to end as I am actually writing in chronological order as all of the above happened on Saturday. When I returned from the stables with the left over cake, I drove up into my driveway and opened up my garage and low and behold I am staring at this white car in my garage. What???

My daughter was so sneaky telling me she was driving to SLO (San Luis Obispo) as we chatted on the phone while she was actually heading home. She spent the weekend with us and left Monday evening. THANK YOU LINEA from the bottom of my heart for this wonderful surprise. We had cake, lots of time together chatting while she went through cookbooks and I worked on my crochet blanket. These relaxing girl times are so precious to me and that was all of Saturday. I had to work this weekend but I work night shift so I still have time to spend awake during the day.

Sunday she drove down to my work as I am 10 minutes from IKEA. She had already items to be picked up that she bought online. We had a great lunch of Swedish Meatballs, so yummy and we shopped. I bought a few things and she bought more to help fill up her new apartment. Her items are like a coffee table that also is like a basket that can store items. And she bought a kitchen table which is what she ordered online. So FUN shopping with her, one of my favorite things to do for sure!

Monday was really fun too, but I felt bad because I already had an appointment with my farrier. My daughter’s best friend came over thankfully and hung out with her so they had some good girl time together. Then we got lunch and we went and got our nails done! OH MY, that is a treat and my nails look so beautiful. It is fun to look pretty as I am not much of a girly, girl. What an amazing, fun, surprising, fantastic weekend. I just had to share and I am going to end with a photo of my pony as I am heading out to take care of them this morning. I can’t believe it’s going to be in the 90’s today and its near the end of October! Cool down please! Go away Indian Summer as we call the fall heat wave here….

Miss Chloe coming to me for a trail ride!

I was so busy I didn’t take any photos with my daughter. Darn it all, but the memories will be with us forever never the less. I hope you all have a great week. I wanted to share my birthday happenings yesterday but just could not fit it in to my very busy day and weekend. I hope all the birthday celebrations this month are fun for everyone. Thankful and grateful to my family! I do LOVE YOU ALL so much! ❤ ❤ ❤

Birthday Pony Girl,

~Diana

Weekend Coffee Share; Birthday Fun!

On By DianaIn Family is important, Living life, Love being Grandma, weekend coffee share16 Comments

Welcome to my weekend coffee share where we share a cup of coffee or tea or whatever suites your fancy to drink. To friends or family I would like to share my recent activities as I didn’t share last weekend so I am going to share two weekends in one. You just have to do what you can to keep up with these busy days, right? That’s how I look at it anyways. Last weekend was my granddaughters 4th birthday, what? How did 4 years just fly by ? BUT it did and she is the cutest little 4 year old ever, okay, in my eyes she is but then I know I am prejudice. Haha, all little 4 year old children are adorable and it is so wonderful to see the world through their eyes!

Happy Birthday to you, cutie patutie! We had such FUN celebrating! ❤

My daughter and I flew to Arizona to celebrate with everyone and we enjoyed every minute. You can see in the photo above that she had to have a baby tooth removed recently because it had died and got infected after she had bumped it when she was I think 2 years old. The doctor said the permanent tooth is fine but won’t come in for another 2 years so she will have that little gap for awhile. She is so silly with her big “cheese” smile. Before I took this photo, she went and put on her My Little Pony head band and put it on a bit crooked, the photo I think is adorable. She just melts my heart! ❤ ❤ ❤

My son and his beautiful wife as we wait for a delicious breakfast! ❤
My daughter with her kitties brother, yup, they both got a kitten from the same litter! ❤

I could share so many photos, but am picking what I think are pertinent and fun. Can I get you more coffee or tea? I have to talk a little about my daughter and these cute kitties. My daughter absolutely LOVES cats but isn’t the biggest fan of kittens. Yes, sounds kind of crazy but kittens are more work and have way more energy than adult cats. These kitties are not scratching us any more like they did when we first brought them home, but they still bite – more like play bite – and are into everything. It can be a bit exhausting and thankfully they grow up fast. I hope my daughter’s kitten will start to behave himself and grow up fast so she can enjoy the purring sounds with out a kitty mouth biting at her hand. Silly kitties, are just so darn playful! 😀

OdySea Aquarium in AZ, fun to see the fish or sea turtles in the Sea!
Lots of sharks in this big giant tank!

On Sunday last weekend we were able to go the the OdySea Aquarium which was great fun. They have a butterfly museum there too which I will have to check out on my next visit to Arizona. I had to catch a flight home on Sunday so we didn’t have time to see both attractions, but I really enjoyed my time there and I also purchased a few souvenirs. My family there says they like the aquarium of the pacific better and I haven’t visited there yet, so I would like to do that one of these days. I was looking online and there are a few aquariums here on the West coast to visit, which makes sense since we are right on the ocean here in California. The aquarium in Arizona has some rescued sea turtles that would not be able to survive in the ocean. I am glad there is a place for displaced or injured animals to live out their lives once the injury has healed. Some of the injuries are from boats/boats motors, especially to the sea turtles.

I am home and this weekend am enjoying my horses! Zack and Chloe ❤
Two photos with Zack and his ears are forward! Only for a treat he says!! ❤

I have to say that the weekends go by much too fast. I was so excited to go to Arizona to see my family and spend time with my granddaughter. Oh how I miss them already. I have family in so many states here in the West and I miss them all! We try and stay in touch and I do know that with this blog and with the internet we all do stay connected pretty well. Certainly better than back in the day when all you could is talk on the phone or snail mail. I know you could print photos and send them to friends and relatives, nowadays you can share in an instant! It is truly amazing. I am amazed easily and am loving how I can share my weekend by just typing all of these words and then click on Publish and its done! SO COOL! I so enjoy sharing, what have you been doing this weekend? do you have any exciting places you are traveling too? or just working on things at home? Thanks for spending some time here with me as I reminisce and enjoy this weekend coffee share.

Traveling Grandma, Loving Family, Missing Family!

~Diana ❤