The Day We Celebrated Gram

We were so glad we could celebrate Gram’s birthday with her this year. For dinner, she picked Katelyn’s favorite restaurant – Bonsai (aka “The Fish Restaurant”). We all love the food and the fact that there is a coi pond full of fish and turtles makes it a real crowd pleaser.

We reserved the table on “Bonsai island” which made tings even more exciting according to the girls because you get to walk across a bridge to get to your table where you can walk around and feed the fish and turtles until your heart is content, or you run out of fish food… which ever comes first.

I think the turtles recognized us because they came right out of the water to visit with us. At first it was cool to see them up close. Brooke sat on my lap and watched as the turtle played peek-a-boo with her. I have to say though, the more you watch that head poke in and out of the shell the creepier it becomes. I mean it is cool and I would love to be able to do that, but it just seems so wrong. It eventually freaked Brooke out so she retreated to the “other” side of the island. We were able to coexist peacefully with the savages and Katelyn actually spent most of her time with them. Just as we were leaving though, the leader of the turtles started to “charge” her… I think it was friendly charge but by then she’d had enough of her hard-shell friends too… plus, we were out of fish food.

The best part is that now I know neither of them will EVER ask for a pet turtle. The picture of Katelyn below, was taken right before the turtle in the bottom left corner started his sprint. Brooke was long gone by that point… every man for himself I guess.

Since Brooke and Katelyn got to plan Gram’s birthday festivities, earlier in the day she got to have her birthday lunch at McDonald’s - we even took Katelyn out of school for that one. Since they were really thinking of Gram, they spread out the birthday fun by taking her to Chuck E. Cheese the day before. They really pull out all the stops when they are planning a celebration for someone they love so much! Gram loved it too and we had a great time celebrating her.

The girls also had so much fun hanging with Pop even though it wasn’t his birthday. Brooke loved riding “shotgun” on his shoulders at the Memorial Day picnic we all went to and Katelyn loved going golfing and to Starbucks with Pop.

We had so much fun with them here and are looking forward to their next visit already!