Saturday, August 30, 2008

Bob's Half Birthday!


Chocolate Half Birthday Cake with Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting

Yes, another half birthday. It's been a busy summer! This time it was Bob's half birthday yesterday, August 29th. You may remember my post about his leap day birthday 6 months ago.

We celebrated in the usual way for us, a cake ceremony, presents and dinner. Above you see the chocolate half cake, this time with chocolate cream cheese frosting. It was a dark and moist cake with creamy chocolate frosting that had a wonderful taste and consistency if I do say so myself. Bob kept asking me what my secret ingredient was. There is no secret. I'll never tell. I just followed the recipe. Notice the rainbow of beeswax candles adorning the cake. I like to use natural wax candles when I can. Beeswax are my favorite.


Pile o' Presents

There were half birthday presents from Jack and me. The artwork on the yellow envelope is my doing. Since Bob is now 64 1/2 (he maintains that he is only 16), I drew a stick figure of him walking down the road passing a sign that says "this way to medicare". Just for fun. I am not sure if he liked it or not, but he did say that the stick figure looked like him.


Bob thinks of a wish while waiting for my camera to function

Then came the flaming half cake, the singing and the wish making.


Blow Bob, blow...

Followed closely by the candles being extinguished by a big puff of air. Good job, Bob!


Opening Gobs of Gifts

Onward to opening the gifts. He received useful stuff like underwear, lemon pepper seasoning and gallon sized zip lock baggies. (It's only a half birthday after all)


Bob finally got his pickles!

In keeping with our family food gift theme, Bob received the surprise gift to match the zucchini Jack received on his recent half birthday and the dry salami that I received last week for my birthday. Bob finally got his hands on my homemade sweet pickles! Handle them gently Bob.


Dinner: Roasted Stuffed Bell Pepper, Steamed Zucchini & Garden Tomato Salad

Of course after all that singing and gift opening, we were very hungry for dinner. We had green and purple bell peppers stuffed with a mixture of rice and ground turkey meat accented with fresh garden herbs, steamed zucchini (gotta use up that zuke!) and fresh from the garden chopped red and golden tomatoes with fresh parsley and basil.

Oh, that was just the main course. We also had a first course of pureed zucchini soup! We actually had some appetizers during the gift opening consisting of cheddar cheese and crackers with some slices of that good dried salami you saw me open on my birthday. I promised to share it, and I did. So we ate a lot of food and stuffed ourselves. No room for cake?


Chocolate Cake with Rocky Road ice cream

We always can find room for chocolate cake. This time we have rocky road ice cream topping the cake. Sort of a chocolate wipe out dessert when eaten all together. It was good. Bob got to take the rest of the cake and ice cream home with him. Good thing too, I have gained weight this summer! I love my sweets. Just a little too much I think.


Jack enjoys his cake and ice cream! (his wine too)

Here is Jack indulging in the cake and ice cream. He provided a nice bottle of red zinfandel wine for our celebration which you can see in the photo.


This was not a posed shot. Bob was just really into the cake...

So another excuse to get together, eat too much and drink wine! After all the eating, we retired to the living room and watched a good movie on DVD. We even managed to stay awake through the whole thing!

Happy Half Birthday Bob!

© Copyright 2008 Mountain Harvest Basket

8 comments:

Danni said...

Um, so, my half birthday is coming up in six days. Can I have 1/2 a party at your house? Please? I *love* chocolate cake.

Sorry about the gift-undies, HW Bob. I always used to get those, too, from my Aunt on my birthdays. Terribly embarrassing.
You really do look happy about those pickles, though, so I'm feeling good about this. :-)

Farmer Jen said...

Hi Danni,
If you come down here to visit us, I will make a chocolate cake for you. Bob and Jack will provide the wine and ice cream, and we all will sing to you. (be careful what you ask for, we don't sing that well!)

You crack me up about the undies! I am sure Bob will laugh too when he sees your comment.

Danni said...

Hmmm....so I guess a roadtrip for you three to Critter Farm is out of the question? It is *my* half-birthday and all...
But how to wrap the three of you....? ;-)

Hardware Bob said...

What a fabulous 1/2 birthday I enjoyed on my way to Medicare.

Yes, I was amused by the drawing Jen, and I was also surprised at how the rather rough stick figure drawing actually looked so much like me.

Jen and Jack's party for me was absolutely perfect, the food was beyond fabulous, the yummy double chocolate cake was scrumptious, the creamy sugar high frosting, my favorite rocky road ice cream, the wine and snacks, even the natural beeswax candles blazing on top of the cake. Everything was perfect.

Then there was Jen's famous home cooked stuffed pepper, more multi- colored zucchini slices of course, and chilled cherry tomatoes with her secret Greek dressing, the fun presents, even the movie Jen selected for the evening was a resounding hit.

The 1/2 birthday tradition is fun even with the embarrassing underwear gift. (It really wasn't all that embarrassing.) The room felt and sounded like close family. Yay, I finally got my prized pickles.

I am a lucky man to have such good friends and so much love surrounding me.

Thank you Jen and Jack, and Happy pre 1/2 birthday to you Farmgirl.

CaliforniaGrammy said...

Gosh, you three sure know how to celebrate. The food looks absolutely scrumptious.

And, now that I'm thinking about it, I have a 1/2 birthday coming up on the 16th . . . hmmmmm . . . you could all come up to Oregon and celebrate Farmgirl's and my half-birthdays and kill two birds with one stone! Oh, forget killing the birds, just come up and we'll party!

Laughing Orca Ranch said...

It seems that evertime I stop by to visit your blog, I leave craving sweets and delicious food.

And my full birthday (not half! haha) is in 4 days. I'll be 42. I have no idea how that happened. Can I go back and be 16 like Bob again?
No wait. 16 was not as much fun as my 40's have been! I think I'll stay 41, though....just in case. :)

Happy Birthday Bob! Will you share your delicious Jen pickles with me for my birthday?

~Lisa
:)

Danni said...

Come see my 9/04/08 blog post please.

Farmer Jen said...

Hi Danni,
I would love a road trip to Oregon. I just don't know when I could get away from here and all of my responsibilities.

Hi Bob,
I am so glad you enjoyed your 1/2 birthday celebration. You seemed to have a good time. Enjoy your pickles!

Hi CA Grammy,
That's right, you are up in Oregon too, at least for the summer. That would be a fun trip to visit both you and Danni. I wish I could get away for more than a day or two at a time, but right now I cannot. Happy half birthday to you a little bit early.

Hi Twinville (Lisa),
We get our birthdays and half birthdays all at once in a short period of time around here. The months of August and also February are filled with cakes and ice cream. I don't think Bob will be sharing my homemade pickles with anyone, even me. He will probably eat every one of them himself.

Hi Danni,
I did visit your blog just now and left a comment. You are so sweet saying those nice things about me and my blog. I really appreciate it. Thank you my friend.