Damien's Early Birthday

Damien laughs at me because somehow each year, I turn my birthday into a birthday week.  I see no problem with it!  The more celebrating, the better!  Well, this year he is having quite the birthday week!  We celebrated in mid December with a surprise birthday weekend in Sacramento, then he had a small little celebration while we were in Washington with gifts, and now we got to celebrate again in Healdsburg with his family!  Go Damien! 

It was a really nice few days in Healdsburg.  After the mad rush of Christmas, we spent the 25th and 26th in San Jose decompressing and then went north to Healdsburg to spend a few days relaxing with his family.  Most of the family was able to make it to his birthday which was really nice.  We combined parties with Sierrah since her birthday falls in the first week of January so there was more celebrating to be had! 

There was no agenda in Healdsburg other than to relax and be with the family.  The cousins went absolutely crazy with each other.  I seriously think they re-enacted the Nutcracker twenty times in Damien's parent's front room!  Papa even made a DVD of their performance and each of them got to take one home!  Lani's little girls are just so sweet.  Claire, Matthew, and Emily spent a lot of time with them while Michael opted to hang with the older cousins (Seamus and Alex) in the cottage where there was major video gaming going on!

It was an extra special treat to be able to hang out with Heavenly who was over for a Christmas visit from London.  We have missed her so much and it was fun to see the kids gravitate towards her like they always do!  We spent the few days in Healdsburg enjoying fresh 'goodies' from bakeries in town and also loved that Emily slept well while we were there.  It is amazing what a good night of sleep can do for the soul!

For Damien and Sierrah's party, Marlene had ordered a lot of fresh crab.  It was so delicious!  The fresh crab dipped in drawn butter was absolutely heavenly (can you tell we loved it?).  Damien and I kept 'accidentally' dropping our bread in the melted butter a few times and you practically had to roll us away from the table when we were done.  Not a great meal if you are on a diet!  It was a great party and I appreciate Mark and Marlene's efforts to make the night a whole lot of fun.  Happy Early Birthday, Damien!  Off to Tahoe in the morning for your official 'Birthday Weekend'!