Getting back into the swing of blogging

I'm sure some of you loyal blogger pals have noticed a lack of new posts from me lately. I assure you that there's a perfectly good explanation why I haven't written anything new since we returned home from Little Sister's birthday party. It's all because of poor judgment.

That's right. Poor judgment in ordering food at a nationally known franchise restaurant with a menu full of pretty pictures.

When we were out of town last weekend everyone decided they wanted to eat at the restaurant with the big red apple in its logo. I should have known better, that's all I can say. We had a large party and it took some maneuvering to get everyone seated. It also took a bit of time before we had our menus and decided on our drinks. Our waiter was attentive and we spent some time oohing and aahing over the pretty pictures of all the pretty dishes offered at this particular culinary haven.

After much contemplation, I succumbed to ordering a perfectly innocent-looking shrimp dish with penne pasta and a parmesan cream sauce (mistake number two -- actually mistake number one was choosing this particular restaurant). After a lot of time, our order FINALLY was delivered to our table. This is where the regrets start. There were several mistakes in the orders. I received the food I ordered but several others didn't. When I tasted my dish, I subconsciously noticed that the food in the bottom of the bowl was definitely hotter than that on the top of the bowl -- which means they didn't nuke it enough.

(My family always kids me because the minimum time I nuke anything that will enter my digestive track is five minutes. If the food is not volcanic after that length of time, in it goes for another five minutes. I fear germs in food because they tend to make me sick.)

Anyway, even after realizing that my food really wasn't hot enough, I foolishly did not send it back for that additional fire-breathing-dragon nuking. I ate it instead.

I will not bore you with the gory details of what happened next. All I will say is that it took about four days to start feeling "normal" again. Note to self: never order anything with a cream sauce in any restaurant, never eat off a buffet, and never eat anything out in public that isn't sizzling, steaming hot directly from the grill.

As promised, here are several pictures from the party. Everyone had a wonderful time and Little Sister will certainly remember this event for a long time. She was so cute as were all the little kids.






Little Sister enjoying her very own birthday cupcake. The pink frosting matched her pink shirt.










Little Sister is helping Dancer Girl fill goody bags for the birthday guests. They did a good job of helping mommy.




Despite several "unnatural" events, the party was a complete success and we were so happy to have spent the time enjoying family and friends. Poor old Cucoo, however, is having a particularly rough time and we hope he is rescued pretty soon. Be sure to follow his adventures at Abandoned in Pasadena's site.