Birthday Beignets

I'm finally getting to my journal posting this evening--now that Abby and Bailey are in bed :-) It's been a busy but very fun day today. Thank you everyone for your kind phone calls, e-mails, cards, and presents! I felt much better when I woke up this morning than when I woke up yesterday morning. For breakfast, I decided to treat myself to some birthday beignets (French doughnuts which they serve in New Orleans) and a mango fruit smoothie at the Marketplace Cafe in Natchez. It was a deeeeelicious breakfast! Then when I got to work, I found that Mary had made a birthday cake for me using a rice cooker in her microwave--I didn't even know that could be done. She told us that the cake had some issues and that the sprinkles, which were supposed to be on top, were hidden somewhere in the middle of the cake. We found them when we cut into it. It was a surprisingly dense cake, and no one was hungry for the rest of the day after eating a piece of it! Even though I was still kind of full from the cake, I couldn't resist a trip to Mammy's for chicken pot pie and blueberry lemonade. Angie and I were the only rangers giving tours today, so she wasn't able to break away and come to lunch, but Melissa and I went off to Mammy's and had the best chicken pot pie ever! I've decided that Mammy's chicken pot pie is worth coming to Mississippi for, so if any of you are looking for a reason to take a vacation and head to the South, Mammy's chicken pot pie is it. I can't even describe in words how tasty it is. Some flowers from Lindy and the girls were delivered there at Melrose, which everyone thought was soooo fun, and then Mom had a lemon cake delivered to my house! I think we'll break that out at work tomorrow.

Then this evening I came out here to the Wesselman's, and we had planned on eating dinner and going to see "Ratatouille," but Abby hasn't been feeling well, so we had a change of plans. She and I stayed here and hung out this evening, while Sister McClure had Justin come pick Bailey up and take him to the movie. Bailey had a great time, and I think that Abby was feeling at least a little better later this evening. I forgot to write about my funny evening yesterday too--we had planned on making spaghetti here and then going bowling with the rangers, but the kids and I decided to go to La Fiesta. When we got there, the McClures and Tim and Liz Blaylock (also from the ward) were there to surprise us! We had a fun dinner, and the La Fiesta people made me wear a giant yellow sombrero while they sang "Happy Birthday" to me. Bailey loved the guys singing with their guitars, and they even sang a special song for him, which he absolutely loved. Because Tim Blaylock does all of the legal work for La Fiesta (which I guess there is quite a bit of--that makes me feel a little unsure about eating there!!), the La Fiesta boss gave us our meal for free! What could be better than free food and a yellow sombrero? Surely nothing. When we went to go bowling, the bowling alley was closed because the people who run it are on vacation! Only in Natchez could you get away with completely shutting down an entire business while you went out of town. People here do it all the time though.

Since we ate out last night, Abby, Bailey and I were going to have spaghetti here tonight, but we couldn't find the spaghetti noodles. So, I made quite the exciting Italian pasta hamburger dish using some noodle packages that I found out in the storage room. My creation, complete with tomato basil sauce was a big hit with the kids!

Well, I'm off to bed. Tomorrow it's just Angie and me giving tours again. Angie said that since she couldn't go to lunch today, we'll order lunch from some place and have it delivered to the park. Thank you again for all of the kind birthday wishes and presents!