Carousel Acres And A Kid's Birthday

Leah's birthday celebration began, as it should, with a cherry cheesecake.  Then presents, then we piled in the car.

For Leah's birthday we took her to a petting zoo, Carousel Acres, to get some animal time in. While now a full-on young adult, she still loves hanging out with animals.

Quite an array of animals are at Carousel Acres, most are rescues and there's quite a variety.

What happens when a Donkey and a Zebra love each other very much? 

You get a Z-Donk.  I did not realize you could get a donkey/Zebra hybrid but indeed you can, and here it is.

The Z-Donk:

Certainly not a typical looking animal. Rather calm and enjoyed the kids brushing her out.

We then went to the parakeets.  The parakeets, after we entered their facility decided to swarm us like a scene from The Birds (the bird seed in our hands didn't hurt).

 

 

Much fun.  Having birds flocking to your hand and calming standing on it to eat is rather fun.

 There were reindeer (No grandmas were run over in the taking of this picture).

 There were also lots of goats to pet. Goats do indeed enjoy a good petting, and compete with each other for attention and a turn.

 

Bunnies also got pets. And there were many other animals to see, including kangaroos, wallabys, kookaburras, horses, and even pigs sloshing in the mud.

Lots of fun was had.

Then we went to a celebratory lunch at Guernsey Dairy in Northville - they have the best fried chicken anywhere and about 50 flavors of ice cream to choose from  - all made right there at the dairy. 

It was an excellent birthday celebration. 

Birthday Flight And Activities

So, having turned 53, I decided to go for a flight to somewhere I had not been before.

So I went with a friend and picked up Leah and the three of us headed to the airport. Abby was unavailable as she was heading back from an academic conference out of town as she was presenting there after she had just published a scientific paper as a co-author- as a junior no less - not too shabby at all.

So the three of us went to the airport, and I did the preflight, got a weather brief which looked good and METARS and TAFs all were in favorable territory, and then we headed out.

Overall everything looked favorable for a flight to Traverse City, a decent crosswind ws expected but well within my personal limits.

Departed VFR with flight following to the northwest on a sunny day with a bit of wind.

 Very smooth in the air though.  Detroit Approach had me hold my climb at 4,000 and then divert 20 degrees left to avoid traffic that apparently was coming right for us, which is one of the reasons I like flight following - its a great extra safety measure. Soon got cleared to head back on course and to my desired altitude of 6,500 feet.

Got switched to Great Lakes Approach and mosied through their airspace at 154 knots ground speed, which was nice. Both passengers were nice and relaxed and both fell asleep on the way.

Getting closer to Traverse City, I got switched to Minneapolis Center and got the weather at  Traverse City.

ATIS was now reporting a direct crosswind gusting between 18-28 knots; a low level wind shear warning; and of pilot reports from landing aircraft of moderate turbulence on final on top of that.

Those conditions are outside my comfort zone, especially when carrying passengers who depend on me to make good decisions. 

I let the passengers know that going to Traverse City would have to wait, and suggested we go to Mt. Pleasant instead as it was close by and we could hit the Casino for lunch and activities.

I let Minneapolis Center know that we were going to divert to KMOP due to the current conditions at TVC and they updated my fight following and I was soon talking to Great Lakes Approach and heading to KMOP.

Arrived there in almost no time and the wind conditions there were also gusty with a crosswind of up to 17 knots.

On the first approach, I did a go around due to a late gust, and then on the second attempt I did a darn nice landing that both passengers liked.  They didn't quite get how much I was working to do it with the gusts on final on that one. 

But, I got it down landing long having added a bit more power to deal with the gusts, but on center-line, and apparently made it look easy to the non-pilot set.

We got the shuttle to the Casino and had lunch. We had chicken from the Chicken Guy for lunch and it was quite good.

We then hit the casino floor and tried our luck.  I hadn't brought my gambling fund with me as I hadn't planned on the casino, but had an emergency hundred tucked in my wallet and played with that.

Played craps for awhile and I had a good roll, but was then up and down with other players, and after an hour plus of playing I walked away having broken even, which was not bad for the entertainment value.

Leah, having not been at the casino before decided to try slots for the first time.

I gave her $10 to play with for her first try with the machine.

She then made $13.50 on the penny slot machine.

 

Not bad.  My friend also made $43 playing slots as well on the neighboring machine so it was a great time.

We then headed back to the airport.  I got a weather brief and all looked good, as did the preflight.

Took off and contacted Great Lakes Approach in the air and got flight following.

It was a fair bit bumpier on the return trip but not a big deal, and both passengers soon fell asleep again.

Soon we passed by Flint airport on the way back.

 Pontiac was soon seen in the distance and I got in touch with Pontiac Tower and was cleared into the downwind for Runway 27R.  I did have an oncoming aircraft as I was heading for the downwind, but Pontiac Tower maintained a good separation keeping me higher and he passed off my wing and below me.

I then descended to pattern altitude and flew a good pattern.  Winds had calmed down to a pretty steady 9 knots from 200, and I made a nice crosswind landing that I was very happy with and my passengers complimented me on yet again. That one was so much easier than the landing at KMOP.

After that, we refueled, cleaned, and put the plane away, dropped Leah off, and my friend took me out for sushi for dinner which was excellent.

Then we went for a swim and had a good time and headed home after that.

Thar was a great birthday day. 

That's 2.3 and 2 great landings.

Another Rotation Around The Sun Completed

We could call this birthday: 53 and Me.

Going to go forth and do some hopefully fun and awesome stuff today.

We shall see how it goes. 

Also my current cunning plan is to get myself a birthday present, which may take some time to get here, and which may lead to some self improvement, so stay tuned for that. 

Kid Turns 21

Where does the time go?

Abby turned 21 this weekend. She came up from university with her boyfriend to celebrate her birthday with us.

Leah flew in for the celebration and to spend the Thanksgiving Break together.

As is tradition, breakfast on her birthday was a cherry cheesecake.

After cheesecake, she received her presents.

The kid is now legal to drink and celebrated with her first order of alcohol at a restaurant, and then buying a bottle of Ciroc at a store that she brought home and mixed her very first cocktail, with fresh-squeezed lime juice and including making her own simple syrup.  It was a rather tasty cocktail.

We along with her boyfriend, finished her day with a further celebration and birthday cake and she had a great day.

52 Times Around The Sun

 So today is my birthday. Been a lot of changes this past year, but things are working out.

Turning 52 is going well so far, and adventures and appropriate celebration are underway of which more will be blogged on later.

Thanksgiving And More To Be Thankful For The Next Day

So, Thanksgiving was very nice.

The next day the family gathered for Abby's 20th Birthday. Also attending is someone who may very well become part of the family, Abby's boyfriend.  

They've been together for a few years now and he seems to be quite a good lad with a good head on his shoulders so we will see what the future holds. He's in pre-med at UofM.  He also has his EMT certification, and among other things, works part time for an ambulance company in addition to the crazy amount of studying a pre-med needs to do. They compliment each other nicely and make a nice couple

Her Birthday, as all family birthdays do, began with cherry cheesecake.

 

This was excellent.

In addition to the cheesecake, Leah decided to make Abby another cake to commemorate her older sister turning 20, completely decorated with her own lively sense of humor:

Yep, it says: "Congrats U Beat Teen Pregnancy". 

It came complete with babies made out of fondant.

That kid has got quite the sense of humor, Abby and boyfriend were suitably embarrassed, and  I daresay both parents were relieved that the message was true.

She then got most of her presents and had a nice time.

Her last present came a bit later in the afternoon.  Her boyfriend took her on a surprise trip to Chicago for this weekend, and as they drove to Ann Arbor they kept on driving west.  Leah helped by secretly packing a bag of her clothes and things and hiding it in the boyfriend's car. She'll be back in Ann Arbor tomorrow afternoon and back hitting the books Monday.  

The kid is certainly growing up fast and has turned out just fine as a young adult. Heck, she's turned out rather awesome. Smart as a whip and a good head on her shoulders. Be fun to watch her continuing to grow.

So it was a great day yesterday and I'm thankful for that as well.

51

Today is as good a day for a birthday as any other, and perhaps better than most, as after all, this one is mine. 

In addition 78 years ago, the day started off with a bang that brought World War 2 to a close.

A fellow at Jitsu yesterday was pontificating on healthy living and said we should take care and maintain our bodies as if they were the only car we ever got to own.

I said: "Gee thanks, I must be tooling around in a classic then".

At least that got a few laughs.

That Worked Out Rather Well

So for Tash's 50th Birthday, I decided to give her a surprise party. That was last night.

Plans were made, lists drawn up, and things prepared and I let the kids in on it and we got to work.

Operation Sleepy Sloth (Tash's declared spirit animal is a Sloth) thus was underway and it began over a month ago.  

I arranged for a reservation of a party room at a Chinese restaurant Tash likes and then sent out invitations.

Next was sending out invitations, and surreptitiously contacting Tash's contacts that I knew, so I could get contact information for other friends of hers that they knew.  This took some doing.

I sent out the invite, stressing the need for secrecy.

RSVPs started coming in.

Then we hit a snag.  Tash announced she wanted all of us to leave for Toronto Friday to have her birthday with her mom.

That would not do.

We then had to carefully come up with excuses why she could not.

First we had Abby claim she had a seminar on Friday until 5pm that she had signed up for and could not get out of.  

I noted that I had already made family dinner plans at an undisclosed location.

Tash was suspicious, but agreed to not leave until today.

I then made arrangements for the cake, then met with the restaurant manager and got things further ironed out.

This week rolled around and the RSVPs suddenly poured in and we hit the capacity of the room at 42 people.

It would be tight but we would make it work.

Yesterday  morning it almost all went to heck, as one of her friends emailed her to wish her a happy birthday and they were sorry they couldn't make it.

What part of surprise did they not get exactly?

We smoothed it over by claiming we had invited them out to dinner with us for tonight and it seemed like she bought it.

So, yesterday afternoon I picked up the cake.  Then Leah and I headed to the restaurant while Tash picked up Abby.

I met the guests as they came in and ot it all organized. and got the appetizers and wine going. She was then 10 minutes out, then 5 minutes. . .then even more guests came who had not RSVP'd and we hit over 45 people, completely filling the room and adding another couple small tables.

Then I met her at the door and we then walked in, turned the corner to the party room and Surprise!

Surprise was achieved! Operation Sleepy Sloth was a smashing success.

She thought we had something going on but had no idea about the scale. Everyone had a great time.

The food at New Mandarin Garden was excellent as was the service. I think we made their night, as the restaurant was otherwise almost completely empty for St. Patrick's Day.

Our happy crowd more than made up for that.

That was a lot of fun to do.

Happy 50th!

Tash turned 50 today.

Cherry Cheesecake (freshly made by me yesterday) was served this  morning for breakfast to celebrate the occasion, as one does.

After Cheesecake and coffee were consumed, presents were given.

 The birthday girl declared she was having a fantastic day, and went off to play tennis with her friends and she had a great time there as well.

We have a surprise planned for her later.

Someone Turned 19 Today

As is tradition, a Cherry Cheesecake was served for breakfast in bed.

All candles were blown out in one solid breath and delicious cheesecake was then served.

Presents then followed.

Things will be Done next.  Happy Shenanigans may ensue,

Then after Things are Done, Thanksgiving dinner will be prepared and served .

Amazing how the years fly by and the firstborn is now 19. She's an amazing, smart, and beautiful young woman now.   She just signed her first lease ever for a shared apartment to begin next year as a Sophomore at University.

Happy Birthday Abby!

A 50th Birthday At Sea

The day after we left Alghero was a relaxing day at sea.  

 It was bright, sunny, and beautifully calm day in the Med.

It was also my 50th birthday.  

The door lock on the cabin cheerfully wished me a happy birthday:

Tash had managed to get a couple cheesecake muffins from the pastry shop, and garnished them with some maraschino cherries from one of the bars along the way, and thus continued our tradition of a cherry cheesecake for a family member's birthday, even at sea.

I then celebrated with a morning workout, followed by a more indulgent breakfast at the buffet, and then relaxing on deck reading books with the family in the sun.

After that we attended tea time, and then did some more walking around the ship, and shot some hoops on the basketball court.

Then we went to dinner.  We decided to splurge for my birthday and had reserved a table at the Crown Grill Steakhouse, one of the three premium restaurants on board.

To say the steak there was excellent would be an understatement. 

The steaks and service ranked up their with the best steakhouses anywhere. I had a porterhouse steak which was immense, flavorful, and cooked to perfection and one of the best steaks I've eaten, period.  

Also, I  got a birthday cake as a dessert which made it extra special.

If you're on a Princess cruise, a dinner at the Crown Grill is an excellent choice for a special night.  

After dinner, we went to one of the bars where some lively entertainment was going on.  

It was Princess' version of Fun with Flags.  Everyone participating got a paper and pencil and the host would put a picture of a flag on the screen up front and you had to guess what country it was.  To make it even more interesitng, he would add additional questions such as a famous singer from that country.  (ie the Jamaican flag was put up and Jamaica and then Bob Marley was the answer to question #2)

Lots of fun banter and humor during the game, and lots of flags of countries I had never seen before so it was challenging and fun, and the host occasionally gave some hints.  Lots of really tiny British ex-colonies have flags, as it turns out - the Brits on board knew them pretty well, but no one got all 10 countries along with all the extra facts but much fun was had.

After the game we then took it easy and relaxed, then played some craps at the casino, and then took a dip in the adults-only pool and then ended the night.

It was a most excellent birthday at sea.

Happy Birthday Tash!

Another cycle around the sun.

Of course, a cherry cheesecake was required for breakfast this morning.

I made the cheesecake yesterday and it came out very tasty indeed. The cheesecake is actually pretty easy to make and a definite family birthday pleaser.

 

So Tash was born on St. Patrick's Day. 

Not too sure what it all means that she was born on a day celebrating an anti-snake event, wearing green, and drinking and enjoyed corned beef, but it's a fine day to celebrate a birthday today.

Today is nice, sunny, and 70 degrees out, a decent anomaly for March in Michigan and absolutely perfect for a birthday.

A Birthday And The First Day Of School

Today Leah turned 15.  

It is also the first day of school for the kids.

So it began with a cherry cheesecake with 15+1 candles, flowers, and presents:

And it continued with them getting in Abby's car and heading off to their first day of school as a Senior and a Sophomore.

They're both growing up a little too darn fast. Leah has already begun driver's ed and Abby is starting to apply to colleges.

49

So the Earth has now gone around the sun forty-nine times now that I've been upon it.

This birthday began as all birthdays do in our household - with a cherry cheesecake.

We did have a candle shortage though, but they made do, so I didn't have to blow out 49 candles nor have all the smoke alarms go off in the house.

Now to do a bit of work and then we have an outing this afternoon to an undisclosed (at least to me so far) location.

Happy Birthday Tash!

Another annual commemoration of Tash's 30th Birthday took place today.

This morning began, as all birthdays here do, with a cherry cheesecake.  I made this one and it worked out pretty well.

Then she got her presents from me and the kids, and then off to work we went.

At least this birthday there will be some restaurants open, unlike last year, so we can take her out for a celebratory dinner.

Seventeen In Quarantine: Happy Birthday Abby

So Abby turned Seventeen today.  Pretty crazy, because I remember her like this like it was yesterday.

The birthday began, as it always does, with cherry cheesecake that Tash made from scratch.  As usual, it was excellent and a fine way to kick off a birthday celebration.

Then presents, which she enjoyed.

After that, she had virtual school and I worked from home.

Next, since she desired deli for lunch we did takeout at our local deli and I went and picked it up.

Then I went to the office as I had things that needed to get done there, and soon Tash came home and took the kids to get their nails done.

I got home late from work after getting some things done on tight deadlines, but in time for dinner, which was, as Abby had desired, takeout sushi from her favorite sushi restaurant, which was excellent.

With so many things being closed, this birthday was kinda centered around her favorite foods.

After dinner she and Leah went off to watch some sister movies and tv shows.

She's declared she had a great birthday and is starting to feel like she's seventeen.

Another Birthday Takes Place

Leah turned 14 today.

The day began, as all of our family birthdays do, with a home-made cherry cheesecake.

Excellent as always.

Then on to opening some presents.

I then had to go to work in the morning, so Tash and the kids went to do some fun shopping.  Then in the afternoon we had pizza for lunch, and then had Dairy Queen ice cream and took it to a local park to sit by the lake and relax.

Then for dinner we went to Soora, an excellent Korean restaurant.  

About the only nice thing about the whole COVID mess - we had the entire restaurant to ourselves.  While they were doing a brisk carryout business, no one else ate inside. Kinda an introvert's dream restaurant.

 

The Galbi was awesome, as was the Japchae, Bulgogi and Bim Bim Bap that we had.  We have leftovers.

Service, as you might expect given the level of activity at the restaurant, was fabulous. The food was magnificent, and we left a larger than normal tip.

Then home to relax, and a few more presents arrived in the mail for her, so she had a very good birthday, and she declared that she enjoyed turning 14.  

Unfortunately her first day and few weeks of high school will be virtual, and there will be no homecoming festivities which is a definite downer for her this year.  Strange times indeed but she'll get through it all.

The Annual Birthday Post - Now With USPSA, Steak, And Premium Ice Cream!

So today I turned 48.

The traditional birthday cherry cheesecake was served to me in bed along with coffee, which was a great start to the day.

Presents included an ESS Crossbow shooting Glasses kit, and a set of SureFire EP4 Sonic Defenders. This was a very timely gift as I was signed up for a local USPSA match today.  A great replacement for my current eye pro, and the Surefires are a nice supplement for wearing under the ear pro.

In short, the ESS Crossbow is amazing - much more clear than any other eyepro I've had - better by far than the Sawfly Revisions I've been using, and the clarity offered by the copper lenses is pretty darn amazing and not appreciated until you try it.  

The copper lens color also worked just fine with the red dot.  The frame is also a lot more comfortable under the ear muffs than any other that Ive tried, and I had them on all day at the match and they were great.  Highly recommend these.

The Surefire ear pro are kinda neat.  They are a pain to get to fit into the ear, but once there really cut down on the noise.  With the plugs they have open you can hear normal conversation no problem but the gunfire is attenuated.   I wore them  under the ear pro all day and could still hear the beep, but there was much less noise otherwise and makes it more pleasant to shoot and be around shooting going on all day.

I had a good match, the classifier I ended up doing a respectable performance and shooting into the middle/high C class which was good with no misses or mess-ups, which was nice.  A very fun match with a pretty high round count of 230 through the Masada with zero issues at all.

After the match I showered and changed (as it was a hot day out) and rested a bit and then we headed out to Fogo De Chao - a Brazilian Steakhouse. It was a proper birthday dinner with meat delivered to your table on skewers and cut to your liking in front of you.  I then got to eat meat until the meat sweats occurred and then ate some more and it was all fantastic  - a carnivore and paleo diet dream.

Thence off to some matcha ice cream at Premium Matcha Cafe Maiko and it was fantastic.  Not paleo, but hey, Birthday.

I split a green tea and Vanilla Matcha ice cream with Abby as Tash and Leah shared a Hoji-cha ice cream. 

For my birthday we added the edible gold leaf option:

Yum!

It was a great birthday.

Happy Birthday To Tash!

Someone turned 47 this morning.

That required the traditional homemade cherry cheesecake that I made form scratch last night:

It certainly was a weird day to celebrate her birthday.

With empty shelves in stores, restriction on travel and going places, and with our furnace out (Furnace died Sunday night, part should be here Wednesday), it was giving her flashbacks of life in the Soviet Union.

On the upside, coffee and cheesecake and her normal optimistic self made for a very happy birthday morning.

Over Halfway to 90

Today is my birthday and the rugrats helpfully pointed out that at 46, I'm past the half-way point to 90.

They are so helpful that way.

The birthday began with the traditional cheesecake for breakfast.

Somewhat non-traditional form the standard cherry, but they ahd just gone peach picking and it was combination time. It still tasted great. Heretical mind you, but great.

Then birthday cards:

This card sadly didn't contain money, but did have nice sentiment from Abby and good flying advice from Leah:

Remind me not to fly near the Andes, especially after she has watched a documentary on Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571. Kids these days.

Then it was off to two different courts for some arguments on behalf of my clients and its been a busy day.

I figure I'll wrap up and head home, plans for a nice dinner celebration is apparently in the works.