January / February / March / April / May / June / July / August / September / October / November / December
October
In our house October is synonymous with "birthday" and boy did we have a big one this year. Joyce moved into double digits -- the Big 10 -- and Ana celebrated the first occurrence of her 39th birthday, if you count like Jack Benny! Of course there would be a roadtrip to the Land of Disney, but not until the end of the month. So we had a little princess party on The Day (the 9th) with the congregation kids after service on Shabbat.
The following day Ana surprised Joyce with fifty flamingeaux on the front lawn with a birthday message for the two of them. Can you see it? It says: Joyce & Ana - BDay Girls - Flamingos R 2 Cool 4 Words. The lady at the message company (Flamingo Surprise) just loved it. She couldn't believe the gals shared a birthday. So anyway, Ana and Joyce spent half the day on the lawn with their pink friends, had a picnic lunch and took flamingeaux-fotox of all kinds of flamingeaux activities. There was flamingeaux golf, flamingeaux croquet; here we have flamingeaux nerf-catch. Our imaginations ran wild!
Ana and Joyce are blessed with good friends, including their friends from the Tsemach Adonai congregation, the leader and his family. Joyce is near the age of their daughter, and amazingly, many of their birthdays are in October too! They invited us along on their birthday trip to an air show in Salinas where we got to see the Navy's Blue Angels up close and personal (and loud!) This was a Royal Canadian Air Force jet they were letting people look at, climb up and sit in (very carefully, of course -- they were active AF jets!)
Another of their dear friends from congregation is Woody who now lives in Southern California. He opened his home to them while he was on a business trip, which gave them a sort of base camp from which to launch their campaign on the L.A. basin. Yes, they did spend 4 (count 'em four) days at Disneyland.
They also attended Sunday services at Robert Schuller's Crystal Cathedral where the weather was perfect for taking pictures, and the music of CeCe Winans was very inspirational. And since one of Joyce's favorite movies this summer is "Volcano" where a volcano erupts from the middle of the LaBrea Tarpits, they had to go see the actual spot where that occurred.
There was no lava available for pictures.
Disneyland was special for a number of reasons. Well, of course it's ALWAYS special, just because it's Disneyland. But we stopped in at the Hotel and got our "It's My Birthday" buttons with our names on them, and everywhere we went we got special VIP treatment. We had our birthday breakfast at Goofy's Kitchen at the Hotel, where Donald led the singing of Happy Birthday, and Goofy dragged Joyce off to dance the Tiki Room Macarena around the buffet table. All the Disney cast members in the park were so surprised that we shared our birthday; the conductor had to announce our names on the train and have all the passengers sing Happy Birthday. When we were in New Orleans Square, the band announced us and played Happy Birthday. Joyce acted like she was embarrassed, but she really had a blast getting all the attention!
And as if that doesn't take up enough of this e-newsletter for October, there is still Halloween to go! Since Ana doesn't like what has happened in the world with her favorite "dress-up" holiday, she really doesn't like Joyce to go out trick-r-treating in the neighborhood at night. So Joyce and Ana look for other ways to have fun, dress up and not promote the more worldly aspects of Halloween. Each year Ana's office at HP has a little "parade" opportunity where the kids can gather safe candy and show off costumes in the afternoon. Both Joyce and Ana dressed, Joyce as the Garden Angel (she has wings on the back of her dress) and Ana as the Queen of the Garden Fairies. Hey, we threw both outfits together that morning!
Then on Halloween Sunday, Ana and Joyce joined friends from the congregation at their school harvest activity/costume contest. We had bought the Southern belle dress the day before and accessorized it with all the other esssentials (gloves, fan, shawl, parasol, hat) that Ana had just laying around the house. Ana was able to throw together her Southern gentleman outfit from stuff in the closet as well (and yes, that is a pencil-thin, eyebrow pencil mustache under her nose). All in all it was a really inexpensive pair of costumes. AND, we actually won a prize, one of five available, for Most Inventive. In all the years Ana has dressed for costume contests, this was the first time she has won. It was Joyce obviously that provided the edge. (TOP)
BACK / NEXT
