We gathered at Ocean Prime on Friday for my birthday

Another birthday has come and gone for me – there are too many to count now… Anyway, we celebrated with a lovely dinner downtown at Ocean Prime. The food is truly exceptional and this year we were downstairs where there was a band playing. Anna took an immediate liking to this and popped herself on one of the stools to chat with the band.

Anna is with the band…

The band took requests and Anna requested Piano Man on our behalf. I couldn’t resist to have a dance with my girl.

Dancing with my special girl on my birthday

The green couch has been a constant in our family since before Jude was born. We have all spent literally hundreds of hours on this couch over the past decade or more. But it is old, stained and doesn’t really suit our new house. We tried to move it to the basement but we couldn’t get it down the stairs. So, it is now an outdoor couch, undercover of course.

Anna still loves the green couch even when it is outside

We ordered the new couch right after we moved in and we finally got it delivered this past week.

The kids eating ice cream on the new couch. No stains yet.

Today was something of a milestone in our family. After talking about this on and off for months we finally told Jude and Anna about Santa Claus. We took them out to lunch separately and delivered the news to them. They both took it well, having had their suspicions for some time. So, this marks an end of an era. We said the spirit of Santa Claus is very much real and that they could now become Santas themselves for other people.