Barbara's Blog: Birthday Celebrations- January 9 and 10

My great-grandson's birthday is the day before mine so we decided to celebrate together.

Carl made his own sign so that everyone could find the party!

The party was held at Ray's shop in Mountain View...a restoration center, a Volkswagen Museum, and also the place that Ray keeps all of his car collection. Carl chose a monkey invitation and so the whole birthday party was designed around monkeys.

Ray is the designated cake designer and baker. For this party, Carl wanted an island with a big palm tree filled with monkeys...and sea animals all around the island. Here's what Carl got!

And Carl was PLEASED!

Now...for the 98th Birthday Party...

Since everyone was in a "birthday mood", I celebrated my birthday with family right after Carl's party.

Balloons announced my birthday...and terrified the cats!

I started my day with coffee in bed...while watching judge shows at the same time.

The big box in the hall was a surprise...and explained all of the loud noises I'd been hearing upstairs.

Tom has been working nights and weekends rerouting electrical and plumbing in the bathroom The whole purpose has been for this...and now I can't wait for the job to be finished so that I can use it. Use what? Take a look...

Yup! It's a REAL WALK-IN BATHTUB with heated jets!!!

I even got some rubber ducks for my new tub!

Hard to believe...but I am now officially 98 years old (or young, depending on how you look at it.)

When Barbara brought the mail in, I was surprised to find a very large envelope in with my birthday cards. Guess what was in it?

I have an autographed picture of my favorite judge...Judge Judy...and I have the photo in a frame on my nightstand.

I also received a card and a note from my godson, Bruce Horan. He never forgets my birthday and this time he even put a letter in it. Barbara thought I should post it here so with Bruce's permission, it's here. You might have to enlarge it to read it...that's what Barbara did for me. When I read it, I said "Just when I thought I wasn't worth anything, I find out that I did something good in my life for someone." Thanks, Bruce! That was nice of you to take the time to write to me.

Carl likes to show me how to play games on the i pad. Nothing like having a 6 year old as your "teacher"! Opening presents was fun...just when we started, the power went out so out came the candles and we went on. Ray and Tom were concerned because it was getting dark and very cold so they went up to Ray's shop and brought back a generator so that I could have my heated mattress pad and my TV on during the outage. Thanks, guys!