The weekend was great. Nina and I along with Bradica (the dog) went to North Salt Lake last Friday afternoon. Several Very Important Events were going on, of which the most important was Stephanie’s eighteenth birthday on Saturday. About 11:30 p.m. on Friday night we were headed to bed when I discovered that I had left the hose and mask home from my CPAP breathing machine. For the uninitiated, sleeping is impossible without the machine, hose, and mask. So, it was drive back to Pocatello time. Ty volunteered to go with me, driving his Lexus (because it has a radar detector). It’s a two hour and twenty minute drive … the radar detector took off about ten minutes. We spent the night at the house in Pocatello and drove back to Heather’s house the next morning, with (almost) everything that we had forgotten. So much for “packing light”!
The first Major Event was Danielle’s soccer game. They played very well and won 2-1. The sun was bright and hot. That’s when I discovered that I didn’t bring a hat with me. Heather’s umbrella worked well and I was probably the only one in the group that didn’t get sunburned.
The second Major Event was dinner for the whole family at The Olive Garden. Stephanie and her boy friend Nate joined us for that event. Nate treated Stephanie to a massage and pedicure at a spa for her birthday present. The food was very good (I had Parmesan-crusted Talapia … delicious and memorable!) but we were a bit pressed for time.
Why? Because of the third Major Event! Danielle has been accepted as an Apprentice Level 1 in the International Children’s Choir. The choir was presenting a concert for parents and friends at the Libby Gardner Hall at the University of Utah. This is a very prestigious choir and Danielle has a lovely voice. The concert was excellent and featured on a couple of numbers with a twelve-year-old pianist who is one of the child prodigies that we sometimes hear about. He literally brought us to our feet with his performance. The concert was about an hour and ten minutes of delightful and well presented music. After a year in the choir, Danielle can move up to Apprentice Level 2. A year later, if she wishes and has put in the work, she can join the main choir, which tours all over the world.
Finally on Saturday night, we had the fourth and Main Event: ice cream cake celebrating Stephanie’s eighteenth birthday while she opened up her presents. She was very nicely gifted, including a to-die-for handbag from her aunt and a porcelain sculpture from her mother that brought tears. It doesn’t seem possible that Ty and Heather are old enough to have an eighteen-year-old daughter. I’m certainly not old enough to have a granddaughter that old! However, she’s made it to womanhood and she’s a delightful person anxious to get into the world and take it by storm. Congratulations, Stephanie!
When I mentioned to a friend from the Philippines about Stephanie’s eighteenth birthday, I learned that this is a Big Deal in that country! For instance, people rent hotel salons for this event where there will be dinner followed by ball-room dancing (a Cotillion de Honor). Eighteen candles given by eighteen important female family members and eighteen roses given by other friends and family with either the boyfriend or the father giving the eighteenth rose. While we don’t go that far, it is still a Very Important Birthday.
I did post a few pictures from a weekend trip to Tagaytay in the Philippines on my last trip there. I have a few more pictures to post sometime. I also put up a ten-minute video on YouTube of one of the malls near the hotel where I stay.