My " Slightly Crazy" Birthday Weekend in Pictures

My birthday was this past Saturday. I knew the weekend was going to have a lot of moving parts! My cousins from Harrisburg were visiting for my birthday and another cousin's graduation party on Sunday. Some of them were staying at my house. The rest of them had a room at the Hampton Inn. I had to clean the pool, the house and make sure there we had clean sheets and pillows. That was my birthday morning. That afternoon my son Matt was flying to Orlando with his wife so he stopped by with my favorite Entenmann's chocolate cake. That was the only cake I wanted because I wasn't sure who else was coming over. I put it in the refrigerator. I love it cold. Later that morning I had to drive my son James to the train station. He and his girlfriend were going to the Mets Game at Citi Field. He brought me a chocolate marshmallow cake. My Harrisburg cousins got off to a late start. They arrived Saturday Night and we ate plenty of cold cuts. Then enjoyed the chocolate marshmallow cake with coffee. The chocolate fudge cake was safely hidden in the refrigerator. I'll have more on that later!

Sunday Morning I headed over to the local Hampton Inn for breakfast in my cousin's room. Yes I mooched a free breakfast! From there we hung out at my house for a few hours. The rain put a damper on our plans to swim. Then we headed to another cousin's house in Warwick for her son's graduation party. I was so excited for this. When I was a kid my dad had two brothers and one sister on Long Island. My grandma lived in Brooklyn. Thanks to Facebook my cousins all reconnected years ago. Opportunities for all of us to get together are rare but always a blast. Five first cousins in their 50's and 60's in one place. A chance for us to share memories and act like kids again! At one point there was talk of knocking me out and taking me to Long Island for a week on the beach. I was a little worried they would do it!

I took Monday off because I knew I was going to be tired after the weekend. Five minutes after arriving home I passed out on my couch. I think it was a food coma from all I ate for breakfast and at the graduation party. I planned on a quiet Monday. What I didn't realize was my daughter promised to baby sit her friend's two kids. So with my two grand kids included I had 4 little people to entertain all day. Then go food shopping. We decided to make grilled chicken for dinner. I put it in the marinade at 8AM. By 6PM it had plenty of time to absorb all that flavor. Then we found out the grill was out of gas! So we made the chicken in the electric frying pan instead. It was very good but not as good as on the grill. Of course, I still had that chilled hidden chocolate cake to look forward to.

I hid the cake all the way on the bottom of the refrigerator. Someone found it! They did leave about half for me I guess! All in all I had a great birthday. Thank You for all of your happy birthday messages on Facebook and Instagram. I hope you enjoy my pictures below.