My mom finally put up my Birthday Post that I've been waiting for, for so long! Go take a look!
Yesterday I was able to be a part of the Fiddle Fest with my cousins. There was a lot of country, Irish, and folk songs. It was pretty fun, too!
Emily played a song "Mockingbird" with a bunch of different types of playing the fiddle and the best part... she yodelled! It was pretty amazing! I kinda wanted to make her laugh because she kept looking at me, but thought I better not.
Mickey played the guitar, Andrew played the guitar and the violin, and DeAnne played the accordion. There was even a bagpiper and a drummer!
Aunt Kate and Uncle DeMonte were just loving every minute of it! I think Aunt Kate was the loudest person there, cheering for us all! It was pretty fun!
Last night I was able to celebrate my birthday with Rachael and Derrick, Lori and Todd, Natalie and Adam, Jason, and all the kids... AT EL RODEO, AGAIN! We all love that place!
Ben, the entertainer, sat next to me and Jason... Jay was sporting his beard he's been growing for a week, I think, but I like to joke that it's really only been a few hours! Ben had come out of the bathroom and told Derrick that he could see Jason's mustache all the way from there! Then came and told Jason too... He was so funny!
Jack wanted to take all the pictures for me because he knows how... he actually took some good ones too!
Jack took this picture of Jason and Ben doing the drink pose.
I didn't get the hat or the whipped cream in the face this time. It was replaced by a pretty sorry rendition of happy birthday, but it was great! We had cake and pieces of my favorite desserts from a local bakery to eat!
It was a great birthday this year... a birthday celebrated for about three days! But I'm not complaining! A big THANK YOU to everyone who made it so special for me!
When I arrived to work, I had a few surprises at my desk... 
My boss, Sandra, had put together this amazing basketful of flowers, she made a pineapple upside-down cake for me (she had asked me almost a month ago what my favorite cake was and while cheesecake is my favorite, I blurted pineapple upside-down cake because when I think of my favorite birthdays in the past, I think of all those summers at camp meeting that Mom made me that cake and Bob made homemade ice cream). Sandra also knitted me a wash cloth and made a sign for my desk. All my co-workers signed a card and one co-worker, Kathy, put together a huge bowl of fruit!
Don't worry, I only wore the sign on my shirt for the picture! Oh, and Trina, another co-worker, gave me a pretty interesting rendition of "Happy Birthday". It was all so very sweet and I had a great day of people coming over to my cube and getting cake and giving birthday wishes! I have never had anything this special at any other job I've ever had!
After work, I had about an hour to get ready before heading over to practice the songs for the fiddle fest, but had to make a quick stop because my phone antenna decided, that day, to fall out! So, I went over there and the lady told me I had to leave it there for an hour so they could fix it! "Um... you want me to leave my phone here for an hour? I don't think I've ever driven without my phone before... what if something happened? Okay... Well... you might wanna turn the ringer off, because I'm sure I'll get a ton of calls while I'm away." Yeah... Kinda interesting that all that came out of my mouth, then I realized what a teenager I sounded like and I wanted to get out of there fast! Ha-ha!
After practice I met with about 14 people to have dinner at El Rodeo. 
Even Anthony was able to make it! Isn't this just the cutest picture of his smile? He is such a happy adorable little boy!
Everyone knew that I didn't want the birthday song, but then the guys came over and threw a hat on my head and for some reason, have a tradition to put the whipped cream on the person's face! I had seen it done the week before and I really didn't want any in my nose!
I was fast on my toes though and after they got me... I got the guy right back! Afterwards, the other waiters told me that no one has ever gotten Ramos back like I did and he does that to everyone!
I was trying to figure out who told them that it was my birthday and everyone kept telling me it wasn't them, which I didn't believe for a second... until Jason came over and told me that he was talking to one of his old bosses and his wife and telling them that we were there for my b-day and the wife asked if they had sung to me already. Jason told her that I didn't want it, but she said that wasn't a good answer and told her waiter to do it!
Last Thursday, we had a very eventful day... Rachael bought us girls tickets to the American Idol Concert so we headed to Natalie's to hang out with her for the day!
After painting pottery, we headed to the lake...
Kristen and Natalie were the brave ones to ride the island-like raft on the lake while Rachael drove the boat. We had a great time until Natalie, on the raft, told us that we should probably head back to the pier soon because the boat didn't have much gas! We took a look and found we had been driving on "E" the whole time! It was funny because then when Natalie got back in the boat, she was trying to explain that we weren't as low as she thought because it was only past the "E" a little bit and that she's seen worse... or something like that.
We then got ready and headed to the American Idol Concert!
Rachael, Kristen, Lori, and I watched this season of American Idol, but Natalie didn't watch any of it, so we were just a little worried that she wouldn't like it... but Lori and I would start telling her everything we could remember about the top ten.
I didn't really get any good pictures of them while they were singing... but I did record some of the songs on my camera! I have to say that this was the best of the three American Idol Concerts that I've been to. The first one was really good with Carrie Underwood and Bo Bice, the second one was Taylor Hicks and it was just awful! We then skipped a year and braved it this year and was not disappointed! They all chose great songs to sing and they were very entertaining! Afterwards we dropped Natalie and Kristen off at Nat's house then Lori, Rachael, and I headed home. Let me just say that 4.5 hours of sleep is a big difference from my usual 8 to 9 hours, but it was definitely worth it to spend the whole day with my sisters!
So, I've been practicing four songs to sing this Sunday for the Fiddle Fest in town. No. I don't fiddle, but my cousins are all playing for it. Mickey and Andrew play guitar, Emily plays the fiddle, DeAnne plays the accordion and I sing a few songs such as "Now it belongs to you", "Is the door standing open for me?" and an Irish song called "Red is the Rose" I get to sing with the "band" and a bagpipe too! I also get to sing harmony with Uncle DeMonte for the song "San Antonio Rose.
I'm a little nervous about it because I'm not very familiar with the songs, but they are pretty catchy! So, if any of you want to come for the Concert... it's on Sunday around 12:30 p.m.
I also got to hang out with the kids when they got back last Sunday. We made cookies.
I think they got a little overly excited about the sprinkles...
Here's one example...
Now the cookies (i.e. overly covered with colorful candy).
One of the finished cookies. They actually had a great crunchy cover.
A very non-eventful-yet-eventful week, I guess. And now, I've gotta go so I can get ready to go to Natalie's house with Rachael and Lori for the American Idol Concert tonight!
I stole this picture from Lori's computer, I cannot take the credit for something so adorable or the picture... But I just had to add a picture of Anthony!
9:45 p.m.
Anyways, it's been about an hour now and he's still asleep! I'm going to check on him, just to make sure he's not pretending to be asleep and really playing with all his toys! Ha-ha!
10 p.m.
Okay, so he's still asleep. But seriously, Lori, who lets their baby's bedroom door squeak! Come on! He didn't wake up, but it sure scared me!
10: 41 p.m.
Never mind... he's been up for about 30 minutes now... but Lori is here now and doing what mom's do to make their kids happy!
This is a difficult job! I don't know how you do it, Lori!
The other day, Ben found my mini-vac at my house and was so excited about it that I had to let him take it home with him! I even let him have the charger, just in case...
The next time he came over, he brought the mini-vac to my house to "clean up" and left it here on accident...
So, he called me a few days later and said, "Fray, we have a big problem!" And he told me that he had the charger at his house, but the mini-vac was at my house. "Ben, would you like me to bring the mini-vac to your house?"
"Yes!" he said.
Seriously, how can you not let such a cute boy have whatever he wants?!?
Oh, and these could potentially be pretty good blackmail pictures later!
I saw these two ducks in a river two weeks ago, after my softball game. They were just too cute to not take a picture of them!
I saw this albino squirrel at a wedding reception and thought it was worth sharing. Weird, huh?
Last Friday, Jack was invited over to his friends house, so I got to hang out with Katya, Kristen, and Ben. I asked the kids what they wanted to do first, and so we ended up making devilled eggs, and lemonaid (Ben called it "Lemon-laid" and then Kristen wanted limes, so she had "Limen-laid"!)
Once Katya got back from her sleep over, we picked up Jason, then headed to the beach to see if the waves were still there! There weren't and it was a little chilly too!
The water was so cold, I think Kristen was the only one that got fully wet!
Here's Ben, chillin' in the sand...
Jason decided to hang out with Ben on the sand, too.
Kristen got the idea that we should bury her, then we made her into a mermaid!
Then ALL the kids wanted to be buried!
Here's Ben, sporting Jason's sunglasses... somehow, during these few days, he learned how to say "Sweet Mamma!" and "Gigantic!" I think it's hilarious! (Sorry, Rach!)
Last week I was able to have four days off work. Three of them were spent with "the kids"!
Thursday, Katya had a sleep over, so I took Kristen, Jack, and Ben to the beach.
The waves were REALLY huge! I'm sure Adam will be jealous once he sees this picture!
The weather was nice and hot and windy and the waves were perfect for being in the shallow end!
The kids decided to bury Ben and play in the sand a little bit too.
Here's the log that Ben, Katya, and I kept pushing out into the lake. Apparently, it didn't like swimming! We thought we'd try getting it into the water, but it wasn't budging!
After the beach, the kids wanted to go bowling. They all had to wear MY socks because we forgot about getting socks! Poor things...
Jack bowled 93, Kristen 88, and Ben 78. I got my all time high of 146 (I think) and got two strikes in a row at the end! Okay, so there were bumpers, but I still did pretty good!
I let Ben put his shoes on his own feet... I think he's learning!
Doesn't it feel like we should be breaking out in song... "Just grandma (Fray-Fray) and me... I can be what I want to be!"?
