Birthdays

We celebrated a few birthday's recently. First was Tara's. A small group gathered at Nick and Lara's new pad for some yummy burgers, chicken, pasta salad (mine) and deserts. It was nice to catch-up with everyone. More pictures here. Next was Sara's. Another small group met up Nate and Sara's place for build-your-own spring rolls and ice cream cake. More pictures over here. And finally, there was a big hoorah for Jill's dad. Donna planned a Route 66 themed party for Bruce's 60th birthday party. Why Route 66 you ask? Well, Bruce was born in Needles, CA as the family was traveling from Arkansas to California on Route 66. Apparently, Bruce's dad was dead-heading straight through with no stops. And by no stops he really meant no stops. Bottles were provided for Bio Breaks and Bruce's sibling were positioned for action. The who was in labor for most of the trip. Bruce's brother (Richard) was instructed on what to do in case Bruce decided he wanted out of the womb in the back seat of their unconditioned car. The younger siblings (Judy and Faith) joined their dad in the front seat while 19 year old Richard was in the back with mom. They made it to the Needles train station where the family pretended to be getting off of the train in order to gain access to the first-aid station. They were then transported to the hospital where Bruce made his entrance into the world. Bruce's dad and the younger siblings went on to California while mom and Richard stayed behind. In order to pass the time away, Richard went to the movie theatre and watched Forever Amber multiple times. When he got back to the hospital his mother asked him what they should name the new baby and he suggested the main character from the movie, Bruce Franklin. And that's the rest of the story... So anyway, back to the party. We had a rib cook-off complete with 5 separate 'secret' entries and ballots for everyone. Everyone had a plate full of side dishes and another plate with 5 numbered pieces of meat. We rated our favorites based on 1) Tenderness, 2) Flavor, 3) Messiest, and 4) Most Unusual. There were two recipes that were baked, one in the slow-cooker, and two that were a combination of oven and bbq. Both of the bbq versions were also the only two that were dry rub recipes. Toby won the Flavor category Toby also won the Most Unusual category Donna won the Tenderness category Linda won the Messiest category Toby and Donna tied for the Overall Winner Since Toby won two categories and the Overall, he was declared the Winner! YAY, TOBY! My dry rub ROCKED but unfortunately the small pieces of meat just dried out too quickly. The rest of the evening was spent enjoying the backyard games of horseshoes, badmitten, and croquet. The final challenge of the day was watching Toby and Linda race to assemble my small camping chairs. It was quite entertaining as the repeatedly reviewed the instructions with much frustration. I finally had to give them hints in order to finish the assembly. Here are the rest of the pictures. Hmmm, we need to do something for my dad's 60th. Folks, put on your thinking caps. It is time to plan a party for Cec's big 6-0!