Celebrating 37

Between my mom's visit, fall break, catching up on work and home life and then Halloween lays also my birthday. While I'm at the age where celebrating your own birthday is not the most important part of ones life anymore, I still love that my family and friends made it a special day for me - THANK YOU!  

I still feel young and not a year older...but here and there I discovered I'm not a spring chick either. Life has been great this past year and by God's will, I will be healthy, happy and striving in this coming year as well. Since my birthday fell on a Tuesday, there was only enough time to read my birthday cards and a quick selfie with my two munchkins before heading out the door: 

At work that day, we had our annual Chili cook-off and then a presentation by the CEO of the company. While I didn't participate in the cooking competition, I did ate my way thru 16 entries of Chili and some sweet desserts. But what made the day even more special was that my company donated $15,000 to the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, which uses the funds to help raise awareness, to support the ones affected by this disease and to find a cure. In this past year, breast cancer has affected my immediate family as well as my friends and my son's beloved preschool teacher. We pray for each of them on a regular basis but it felt good to show our support  for those three women and all the other men and women who are battling or recovering from this disease or lost their fight against breast cancer. 

In the afternoon, we continued the celebration with homemade (with Elliot helped bake) birthday cake. This is 37!

As a special birthday outing, Derrick and I bought tickets for Phantom in the Opera, which was performed at the TPAC in town. By luck, his co-worker had purchased great seats but since he was no longer able to go, he sold them for half off to us. 

I love musicals and shows; thus, it was a great treat to see this performance again. Many years ago, I saw Phantom live on Broadway in NYC and loved it. Over the years, I had forgotten some details of it and it felt like, certain parts were casts a bit different. However, this cast, especially the Phantom, were outstanding and I loved every minute of it. 

A great ending to a fabulous birthday week. I'm beyond blessed for my loving husband, family and friends and the chance to live my life amongst them.