MICHELLES 45TH BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION

so, i hadnt really had an enjoyable dinner for myself that i wanted just for me, even when its mothers day, i conceed to allow craig to have a steak, which forces me to go get some form of fish dinner, to minimize the caloric/fat/carb intake.

but THIS year, i wanted to have something i hadnt had in a LOOOONG time...totally against my diet on all accounts, but i had a craving, and my birthday was an upcoming event, and i deserved it.

i wanted to have PIZZA HUT PIZZA!
it had, literally been YEARS since i had my fav pizza last. and it was time, and i was due.

so, the quest came to find a dine-in pizza hut. believe it or not, theres one in my local area! ONE!
so when craig came home, we headed out.

we got there, seated ourselves. wasnt very busy, we were the third table with ppl at it, there was about 10 of us there, about.

took the waitress forever to get to us.

she asked what we wanted to drink, and we made our orders.

we each ordered our own pizza.
 i also ordered a salad. and wasnt told that the bowls were on the buffet, and i could go help myself.

eventually, i went and did it on my own. its my birthday after all, and i wanted a salad.

we enjoyed our pizzas.

 craig and daniel both had some sort of meat lovers pizza, with as much meat as you can pile on top of the pizza.

i had a super supreme because i like veggies on my pizza.

they ate about half of theirs before they were done. me? one slice!

i was DONE! finished! couldnt have put another peice in if i wanted too, i was STUFFED!

they had another meal, i had a weeks worth left over, lol

MICHELLE

NEWS - KIKI THE GORILLA CLEBRATES A MILESTONE

Kiki The Gorilla Celebrates A Milestone

Franklin Park Zoo Gorilla Turns 30

 August 21, 2011

BOSTON -- Visitors to Boston’s Franklin Park Zoo helped celebrate a milestone birthday for one of their residents on Sunday.Kiki, a western lowland gorilla, turned 30 years old.In honor of her special day, zoo officials threw a birthday party, providing special treats to both Kiki and her daughters.Visitors on hand to watch the celebration were also able to sign a giant birthday card.Kiki is the mother of Kira, 12, Kimani, 6, and Kambiri, 9 months.The gorillas are on exhibit every day at the Franklin Park Zoo.

NEWS - LONGLEAT SAFARI PARK WESTERN LOWLAND GORILLA MARKS '50TH BIRTHDAY'

16 August 2011 Last updated at 15:50 ET

Longleat Safari Park western lowland gorilla marks '50th birthday'

 

A western lowland gorilla, known as Nico, has celebrated his "50th birthday" at Longleat Safari Park.

The 32-stone (200kg) gorilla arrived at the safari park soon after it opened in 1966 from a zoo in Switzerland and is thought to be at least 50 years old.
Nico is also thought to be the oldest silverback in Europe and the second oldest male gorilla in the world.
Keeper Mark Tye said Nico was "still extremely active and in amazingly good condition considering his age".
For the last few years, Nico has been living on a "centrally-heated island" complete with satellite television and Sky Plus.
Mr Tye said it was difficult to think of a present for the gorilla "as he's pretty much got everything already".
"Someone came up with the idea of a bouquet of flowers," he said.
"Although I'm sure he appreciated the sentiment he couldn't really disguise his lack of enthusiasm for them."
The oldest male gorilla in the world lives in the USA and was born in 1961 while the oldest female, who also lives in America was born in 1956.

CRAIGS BUYING THE FAMILY A NEW PRINTER AS HIS BIRTHDAY GIFT

he had to ideas in mind...

1)- a midi card for his PC so he could play around with his music stuff.
(which, he hardley ever does at the moment anyway)
2)- a new wireless printer.

i asked why he wanted the MIDI card...answer: to be able to play around with his music stuff
(reminder, he never does now as it is, anyway)

so i was explaining to him, the benefits and deficits of each one.

our old printer died, a while back...just quite working one day, and he went online looked up a printer that was wireless, cheaper ink, and bottons on the front instead of on top
(dern cats would cut the thing off and on multiple times a day, even print stuff that was in a cue for a while waiting...irritated us to no end)

and i never really thought too much about not having that old printer in the family...until recently.

im just getting back into porting my family history into a program PAF (personal Ancestral File) and i have THOUSANDS of names to input. and i need a way to keep these names all organized.

most of them have been handed to me in PDF form via distant relatives through email.

and i REALLY need to get them inputted somewhere where i can have them available for me to put on a flash drive and kept close to me.

so, all of a sudden, im anxious for this printer.
so i can start this task i have to do..

my church offers that PAF program for free.
and we also have PEDIGREE CHARTS that you can fill out for free as well, to keep a history and record of your family history.

i always start with great fire within me, but fizzle out about 300 names in.
the task becomes boring and tedious to me.

im one of our churches FAMILY HISTORY consultants. which is a fancy way of saying:
"ill help you with YOUR family history, if you want me too"
and thats for anyone. member of my church or not.
if you need help...im your girl.

brother mcgarr (member of my church)has inputted something like 6K names into his PAF program on his PC.
id like to be able to say, i dd as much myself.

and id like to have all this data stored so when i do my web page idea for this family tree im a member of, it would be accessable and available to others to contact me with their info and id add that line as well..

im not getting any younger.
and i really do need to get this done.

getting craigs family history done as well, would be good.
he has a few names.
i can work with that. see what i can find.

getting the info from my 1st husband wont be so easy.
i feel its a necessity to have tho, to do the line for daniels sake.
just as much as it is to do craigs line for him AND daniel.

so, this printers a huge thing to me.
a way to keep organized and thorough.

MICHELLE

CRAIGS 49th BIRTHDAY

the man of the hour

Craig and Daniel

a Guest, seems to always be at these family events...*sigh*

craig enjoying his standard celebratory dinner, STEAK, with a side of APPLES and a POTATO

daniels standard dinner, a BURGER with BACON on it, and "no stuff" with a side of fries.

paris bought his own dinner. a BURGER, with allot of ranch...

my dinner: SEASONED TALAPIA with a side of  SEASONED VEGGIES and Steamed BROCCOLI.

daniel and paris having a conversation...

craig chose NOT to have deseet, mainly because he was filled with dinner...so he let daniel have the dessert hed have gotten, an APPLE something, topped with a scoop of VANILLA ICE CREAM and drizzled in CARAMEL

of course that meant that paris also HAD to have his own dessert, he opted for a cheesecake.
folks, let me tell you, that was the LARGEST slice of cheesecake i had ever seen, period! hard to tell in the pic, but it looked like it was an 8oz piece, seriously.

GIFT GIVING TIME! sorry about the bag they were in, it was what was handy at the moment, lol

THOMAS THE TANK ENGINE..towel. this man LOVEs trains, so it was fitting for him to have this for a gift.

craig fancies himself a kind of HIPPIE, mostly just for the tie-died stuff, and the music...so when i found these towels, i HAD to get them for him..

MORE GIFTS!

PENS! the man NEVER goes WITHOUT making sure he has a pen in his pocket, a true nerd, except he DOESNT have the pocket protector...lol (im working on that one,,lol)

PURPLE (his fav color) NOT BOOKS the size of his pockets.
one of my pet peeves about my wonderful husband is, the fact he carries around a buch of loose papers torn to the size of his pocket to write notes on as he needs to. THATS not the pet peeve, its associated tho.
when craig bends over with that massive  bunch of papers in his pockets, they ALL fall out and...scatter, and it takes craig a minute or two to gather them all up...frustrates me.
so, this was a gift  out of frustration for watching the happles smess over and over and over again...
USE THEM HONEY! i dont want too see those silly loose papers falling and blowing and getting wet anymore...

mans an eagle scout, and he also, never goes without a flashlight in his pocket. PURPLE at that!

he also, can juggle! my hubby is versitaile, lol...
so, i found these  balls, thought, well he collects them, hers some more.
ENJOY HONEY!

MICHELLE

DANIELS 17TH BIRTHDAY

its getting harder and harder to get the kid something when half of what hed like he always gets before the holiday.

as soon as ones done (christmas OR Birthday) im on the hunt for more items to try to surprise him with for the next vent 6 months down the road,
this year he asked for, and showed us, what items hed want for clothing,

we had decided after much debate and watching the kid, that wed go ahead and get another xbox360.
this one, however would be purchased over time, for one reason, it helps to build a credit score for us, and it wouldnt cost an arm and a leg out of our pocket to do it at one time, and the kid seemed sencier about not abusing the rights he has on the system. so we took a giant leap of faith on him, and got him another new system.
he had no clue.

so, finally the day comes (july 29) for us to celebate his birthday..he was very casual about it, not really talking much, not inquiring about gifts, not asking if we were gonna do anything.
and i told him we were gonna go out to celebrate.

daniel hates the "show" of any pubic event...hates to participate, hates the fact  i take pictures..im not really sure why. (very much my mother, she wanst into all that either)
anyway, we had  decided wed go cheap someplace to do this, we hadnt bee to burger king in forever, and we decided wed got there, piled danile and the gifts (that were all in the back seat with him) in the car, and started on our journey.

when we pulled up in the parking lot of the establishment, daniel had a cow, and walked off, just left! refused to do the opening of gifts, or anything like that in any restaruant.
so, we had to take everything from the place back into the car, drive down the road and go get him, he was walking home!

when we convincd him to get in the car, i asked him what hed want to do, which i had been asking and all i got was it doesnt matter" as a response.
his answer this time was..go home and do this..
to which i told him hed have to clean up the living room because i didnt want to have a messy room in the pictures.
we got home...
he started cleaning..
as he was doing that and we were commiserating our defeat for a well meant  celebration, craigs mother calls...
and well, we sued that to our advantage.

went back in the living room, told him his grandmother had resquested we go out to eat , because she had sent us money to celerate with him on , and wanted us to make sure we took pics so she could see them and hat he got on FaceBook..

so, he had a change of heart, decided to go back to Burger King and do the celebration..

so we pile it all back into the car, wth the kid in the back seat, and...head right back out to the same place...

find a spot (no one was there, and i mean..NO ONE!) and proceeded to have the celebrations..
one by one he opened gifts:

seriously NOT feeling the celebration thing

dinner

see that smirk, its cause daniel was like "im never gonna wear this, why did you get it?" simple answer: its all they had we thought youd like for half off if we got another shirt, thats the half off shirt...appreciate!

my sons growing up, has moved primarily from his favorite band ICP (insane Clown Posse) to DubStep artist: DEADMAU5. and with that adjustment he went from the dark shirts to "anything but balck shirts" and this deadmau% shirt was the 1st of all of the rest of them that wasnt black, he didnt get 1 black shirt, or 1 ICP item this birthday.

3 pairs of shorts

graphic tees (white)

see, no smile yet. lol

fake smile, i asked him to smile for the picture

another graphic tee-this one, blue!

MORE shorts, cant say he doesnt have enough now..LOL

folks, THIS was the genuine smile!
i could have sworn with all the time he and that xbox sat in the back seat together hed have noticed it, but he didnt, i knew he didnt when i handed this over and the look of surprise swept over his face, resuting in THIS smile...
he said he didnt know it was there...ill chose to believe him.

now THATS the look of 1 happy kid.
was it so bad daniel? did it make you feel aweful? no. you got o=something you wanted, had to sacrifice a small part of yourself to make others happy.
thats part of life, welcome to 17! it just gets better from here.

MAMMA

BIRTHDAY SHIRT

this post is a lesson in timing, 6 months later getting to post this, ive forgotten if we bought this or my mother-in-law got it for me, my fading memory has me getting it for myself, but im not sure.

note to self: BLOG SOONER! lol

anyway, i had gotten for my birthday a new shirt.
i wanted to make sure i had a record of the shirt with me wearing it.
here it is: ENJOY!

me in my NEW shirt

another longer shot.

MY 44th BIRTHDAY DINNER -JANUARY 26th

i LOVe having birthdays! seriously, i do.

my mother, on the other hand never made a huge fuss about hers, and ive heard the same sentiment acrss the board with allot of other females.
i turned 44 this year!
yeah, one year away from hitting 45, which is 5 years away from 50. and 50 away from a hundred.
do i like the numbers like that? not so much.
so WHY would i want to celebrate the fact that i got closer to them?

because i enjoy celbretory events about me. call me  concieted, if you will, but i like having a birthday, or a day, thats just about ME! im not wrapped into a celebration about a 'family' or a 'holiday' i get to have 1 single day about me, and im worth it!
so, every year on january 26th i get all excited and cant wait to go celebrate MY day...

the timing of its kinda sucks tho, cause im just on the heals of Christmas by a month and 1 day..so i almost get all my gifts at one shot, broken up, of course by several weeks, but all in the same season, and the same area of the calendar...WINTER.
but fortunately i wanted too cook, just long enough that i actually DO have a celebration apart from each other.

so, it was, this january 26th craig took the family out to celebrate and i, of course had pictures taken to commemorate the event. ENJOY!

APPETIZER. i figured at some point i was gonna have gastric surgery, i might as well, go out with a bang, if this was gonna be one of my last meals id have. turned out i had a few other chances to indulge, i didnt have surgery until the following march of 2011

MY meal, im still very conscious during this time to try to get in as much protein as possible, i basically took leeway for regular foods usually when wed have a celebration, like my birthday. otherwise i stuck to a mainly protein based meals.

My son, Daniel Alan Williamson

My sons best friend, Paris Griffiths. trust me, id have rather celebrated without him, he was an added person to a small social event that i really dont want to have to share with.

craigs dinner, typical. STEAK n APPLES for a side.

My Husband, Craig Williamson. Hes prolly the best man i could have ever hoped to have been blessed with. hes really a very good man.

Dessert. i dont believe i actually ate this. i dont remember eating it, altho i may have done so. looking back as i write this, i was unaware of fat content as a way of thinking. if i did eat this, im sure it was seriously very good!

i ADORE anything Monkey related. This was a spur of the moment idea too try to find at the store when we took daniel to go get me a gift. i was lucky, they had just one left!

yes, folks those are real tears you see. i got really emotional reading that card. its was from daniel. he didnt even sign it, but the message was loud and clear. as much as i think he DOESNT pay attention to my role in his life, HE DOES! and i was really touched by this as a gesture. all-in-all, it was enough, IT could have nee the only gift i got , because IT meant the most.

more monkeys, lol

and even MORE monkey stuff, lol

LEMON FLAVORED LIP BALM.  got it for 2 reasons, the shape, and the color yellow! its really nice flavored lip balm.

My fav gum right now.

wonder what THIS monster of a beat is?

A BRAND NEW FOOD POCCESSOR! that wouldnt get used until 6 months later...lol

My mother-in-law sent me these awesome chopsticks, i have them in my purse anywhere i go so if the need arises to eat with them, i have them handy!

Look, mom! i can use CHOPSTICKS!

Daniel avoiding the camera. lol

as good a shot as i can ever get.

my birthday out was a wonderful event. i look forward to celebrating number 45!

MICHELLE