March 18th, 2020

Apologies for the late Blogpost today.  I was up and out super early trying to buy a few groceries and track down the ever so elusive toilet paper  this morning.  

But now I'm back and writing about Joy's Birthday Celebration which was last Friday.  Y'see Bob is out of town taking care of other business and so we took on the mantle of official Birthday Celebration Providers!

Tim had already planned on taking the day off on Friday so we had the entire day to play.  We offered her a lot of ideas of things to do such as seeing a play, going shopping, visiting a museum (this is all before the closings by the way)...lots of ideas.  But her choice was visiting model homes.  See!  It's not just me!  It might be a genetic thing.  And since the Parade of Homes was still going on, that's exactly what we did.

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We picked Joy up around 10:30 and headed out to the first set of houses in a community called, "Artistry".  There were six homes to visit just in that neighborhood and it takes us awhile.  We don't just breeze in and out, we really look at every room. We "redecorate" it to suit our own tastes and mentally place our own furniture.  We each chose our favourites and then we moved on to The Lake Club in Lakewood Ranch.  I think we saw 4 different gorgeous homes there before we set out for the last community, a little further north in Ft Hammer. It was called, The Islands on the Manatee River.  Long name, pretty houses, beautiful area.

Hard to believe I'm sure but that took nearly all day. It was dinner time before we realized it.  Joy couldn't decide where she wanted to eat to Tim decided and took us to Stonewood. Joy had never been there before so that made it a little more special. And a surprise which is a bonus.  Joy and I had excellent cheeseburgers but Tim had Prime Rib.  All of it was excellent.  They offered a dessert menu but we  had another idea in mind.

Cheesecake Factory!  YUMMMMM!  We were all way too full to eat right away to we made our selections to go.  Tim chose lemoncello cake, Joy chose strawberry shortcake (which I had no idea they even offered) and naturally I decided on a slice of cheesecake. I don't remember the name but it was something complicated and decadent that had pecans and chocolate and caramel. I ate it much MUCH later that evening and it was heavenly.

We drove back to Joy's place and went up to just sit and visit awhile and play with the kitties, Charlie and Winston.  They are always very entertaining.

To be absolutely fair, Joy, Bob, Tim and I all four of us went out to dinner the week before to begin the birthday week celebration and I gave Joy her gift then. (she is wearing it in the top photo).  Yes it was a little bit early to give her the gift, but sometimes, you just gotta.

I think a full week of celebration is just the perfect amount of birthday-ing.

​HAPPY BIRTHDAY JOY!