A Birthday and an "old" friend

We had an invitation to join Peach's family in helping her celebrate her 69th birthday at La Placita Dos, a Mexican restaurant in Citrus Heights (north of Sacramento) and, of course, we leaped at the chance (anything for an excuse not to cook!).

Everybody was there by the time we arrived, but I didn't see Kathy, so I asked Peach if Kathy and her husband were coming. Turns out Kathy has a lung infection (terrible for her COPD) and not only could they not come to the birthday party, but we also have to cancel Cousins Day, which was scheduled for Tuesday. I won't see them, now, until after we return from Europe, darn it.

It was a nice, small group for dinner...

...just family and the lady in black on the right (Lois), who is Peach's lifelong friend, and who is the lady who adopted our little "Princess" a month or so ago.

I almost never get the chance to see Peach's younger sister, and rarely even mention her here, so here's Mandy (with her husband at the left and Peach's daughter-in-law on the right). Peach and Mandy are quite different from one another.

Since Peach isn't a big dessert eater, when dinner was over, we each got little ice cream cupcakes in chocolate cups--really a novel idea (also delicious, and not overwhelmingly large).

After dinner, Lois invited us to come and visit with Princess (now renamed "Sugar") and we jumped at the chance. The puppy has grown, her fur is all grown out now and she is obviously with someone who just loves her to death.

Sugar really seemed to be happy to see us. In fact, she kept running back and forth from one to the other of us, begging to be picked up and then licking us all over before jumping down and running to the other one.

It was probably 10 minutes of this back and forth between Walt and me before she went out on the grass to walk around, and walked over to Lois to be petted. ("I'm glad you remembered I live here," Lois teased her!)

When we got home again, it was a good 20 minutes before Lizzie stopped sniffing my entire body.

It's always so nice to see these little guys again in their new homes and see how much they are loved ... and it's always nice when they are obviously happy to see us again as well!