50 balloons, one belly and 1000's of bobs!?!?

his desk, his stuff







Monday morning, I woke early and watched him sleep, I sat in his chair, drank my coffee and wrote my talk for TEC...


I didn't want to go into my studio in fear that I'd miss his waking moment on the anniversary of his being alive for half a century.

the kitchen window sill in the only light shining in downstairs...
shining in on the bottle of wine Moira and John brought over the night of Dom's last supper...

a Spanish wine...

first light here...the middle of the afternoon there

Sunday afternoon his family came down to celebrate. The boys, Courey and his sister Micki put all the food together..they cut and marinated, chopped veggies and skewered! grilled and... cleaned up...
they did it all (since we were at the wedding).
Sharon of course brought her potato salad
and DJ made the best dip and a wonderful fruit salad to add to the mix!
It was wonderful!?!?
I was so proud, they don't need us as parents anymore!
They are pretty much self sufficient...what a feeling!


'Tons' of fire!!?!?

one blow!

and of course the show at the end of the visit!

That evening in honor of Uncle Frank it was "How Frank was born"
wonderfully cute, as usual,
but the gosh darn cutest moment ever
was when little Andrew ran over and gave Frank the biggest squeeze hug ever
as the grand finale!?!?

Oh my goodness...little pat pat pats on the shoulders....adorable

Then for his actual birthday,
which was an absolutely perfect day...sunny, cool...
I could not bring myself to give the guy left-overs, no matter how good they had been!

God had given him a perfect day
the least I could do was make reservations!
So we splurged and went to the Glass House Grill...

half of our family for half of a century?!?!


after dinner














home at the end of a perfect daymy mom's matching perfect gift!