Celebrating Another Birthday

My 27th birthday was February 28, and the next day, on the very anniversary of me getting Pippin, I had another birthday party at my house. This time, Pippin mostly avoided people by staying outside, but we had another new addition to the family. Our new puppy Rusty came over to my party, and he was eager to greet people. I had asked for the usual pumpkin cake with chocolate frosting, and here Mommy is shown presenting it to me, with my best friend Rebecca Wheat along the many watching. The cake was good, though we had to make sure that Rusty didn't get any.



After the cake was eaten, our friend Fred Park, who is a professional photographer as well as a dance caller, insisted on taking a series of group pictures of everyone. Such photos give a good example of how many people were at my party. This photo that he sent me shows up smaller than my photos, but you can click on it to get a better look. Emma is holding Rusty, with Sage right behind me glancing over towards him.

I went from being surrounded by people to being surrounded by presents.

Among the first presents I got was Edgar Prado's book My Guy Barbaro. I had wanted this book ever since I had heard it was coming out this past April, and was very happy to see it become mine. My cousin Adelie is seen peering at me from beside the couch.

While I was opening presents, Rusty was still greeting people. This is a cute picture I took of Rebecca holding Rusty, with the two of them looking at each other.

They turned to look at me at the same time.

Rebecca borrowed my camera again, and just as I was looking at this outfit that her mother Debbie gave me, Rusty jumped up on the couch, and he wanted to greet me right then!

These are a couple of cat toys I got. They dangle from a stick, and I knew that Pippin loved to go after toys like these.

Rebecca took this picture of Rusty at my feet, with him apparently interested in the string in front of him.

Rusty came up to Rebecca and gave her a funny look.

Hazel was showing me how Sage had decorated the card and envelope they had given me. My next door neighbors Tina and Jason's one-year-old baby Iris is shown visible by my left arm. They had just moved in last spring after my old neighbors John and Amy moved away.

Sage also did this big drawing especially for me. Hazel pointed out what certain squiggles represented, such as flowers. Sage had been really eager to draw this and give it to me.

Hazel gave me this book that featured female writers writing about their feline companions. That applied to me pretty well.

Another book that Hazel gave me, called If Your Cat Could Talk, was a guidebook explaining many facts about cats and how to take care of them. It is filled with cat photos.

Adding to the cat stuff, Rebecca gave me a cat magnet that looked a lot like Pippin!

This bag contained another present that Rebecca and her mom gave me. I could see a blue blanket tightly wrapped up, which turned out to be very hard to pull out. I grabbed the blanket with one hand and the bag with the other, and proceeded to pull as hard as I could with a grin on my face.

After some tough efforts, the blanket finally shot out from the bag.

Yet another present from Rebecca was these colored pencils, waiting for me to do artwork with them.

Before the party, Fred Park told me that he had written a whole dance named after me, and showed me this paper very quick. Now, it was officially time to look at the handwritten moves of a brand new contra dance called "Rachel" (Fred hadn't known that my name has an unique spelling.)

Now it was Mommy's turn to look at the dance.

This dance offically made its debut at my house, with people lining up outdoors on my deck. I never had a dance held at my house before, much less a contra named after me.

Rebecca and I moved to the window together, where we had a better view of the dancers. I took a few dance pictures.

Hazel was doing a interesting demostrative pose. My professor Paul Smithson was Hazel's dance partner.

Everyone decided it was too cold outside to keep dancing on my deck, so the dance was moved into my living room. Even though my house isn't as spacious as my family's house, which was built for contra dancing, there was still room for one small line. Rebecca took my camera upstairs to take pictures. Fred is in the middle of the picture across from my aunt Nancy Ann who was holding Adelie. He was calling as they danced.

Fred was explaining a move in the photo below.

Rebecca came downstairs and took this good picture of Mommy, Daddy and Hazel as part of a tight circle.

From where I was sitting by the sliding door, I had a good view of Emma, Rusty, and Sage all watching the dancing from upstairs. I didn't have my camera yet, so I was glad that Rebecca took this picture.

Rebecca came over to me to take this picture from my perspective.

Rebecca finally stood in front of the two lines for another great snapshot. Because there weren't any musical instruments brought to the party, Fred had the dancers sing out loud the tune of "Jump at the Sun" once they had mastered the dance.

Rebecca handed me back my camera and had to bid goodbye to me. I turned to the brand new bookshelves that Daddy had built just shortly before my birthday. The shelves are a nice example of my decorating job, with small books and items filling up some of the empty spaces.

Sage had his nice pose as she looked at me from the top of the stairs.

The dancing was now over, with the remaining guests lingering around and talking. Sage, Adelie, Emma, and our cousin Camille were all observing the action from upstairs at this moment, though they did a lot of running around in my loft space. Sage and Adelie especially loved chasing each other back and forth. The photos I tried to take of them running around turned out to be a blur.

Rusty got on my couch and took another cute pose, looking around.

He joined Adelie going up the stairs, side by side.

At the top of the stairs, he met up with Sage, and they peered down together.

Later on, Camille took Rusty, and they sat together in my net swing that Daddy had removed at the beginning of my party. Now there there was just family remaining, the swing was put back up, and Camille took Rusty for his first swing ride. Adelie became very interested.

As I waited for Pippin to come back indoors, I took this solo picture of Rusty sitting in my living room chair, with the evening light growing and the party people gone. Pippin's massive pillow had been set behind the chair, so the chair could be used as a people chair. The chair was a good setting for Rusty at this time.

Pippin still hadn't returned when the rest of the family went to the other house to fix a lasagna dinner. I was left on my own to wait for him. He had earlier approached the sliding doors twice during the party, but quickly ran away again when he saw how many people there were. It was quite dark when Pippin finally came into my house, but I made sure I spent some time with him before rushing off to the other house. I think Pippin was glad for the few minutes alone with me. He lay on top of the card table that was set up for my party, giving me opportunity to take this picture. The flowers in the foreground were a present to me. Pippin and I had a peaceful ending to a big party honoring my 27th birthday.