[Bill Pritchard]

Thanks to everyone for the well wishes! It was a good day.

Bruce, we did just that...We went out to Famous Dave's BBQ for dinner. It was good, but I don't know if we would go back or not....we generally like a place that's quieter and a little more intimate. There was a table seated next to us, a couple with 5 children. I was very apprehensive, as it seems we all too often get seated by loud, obnoxious brats whose parents do little or nothing to control their behavior. Anyway, they were all so extremely well behaved that we commented on it to each other a few times during dinner. After our meal, I told Marilee that I was going to go over and thank the parents for having such well behaved children, as it was really fun to watch them enjoying their dinners. All of a sudden, our waiter comes to our table with a huge bowl of ice cream ( 5 scoops plus topping) with a big sparkler-type thing in it....Marilee had tipped our waiter off about it being my birthday without me hearing it. They took my picture while the thing was still shooting sparks. That had no sooner subsided than an identical sparkling ice cream dish was brought to the table with the 5 kids....it was one of their kids' birthday also! At Marilee's suggestion, we immediately gave our untouched ice cream to them so that there would be plenty to go around. One of the other kids eyes got as big as saucers when I handed over the second dish of ice cream! We had a good laugh. After they finished their ice cream, the father said something to the little birthday girl, and she came over and stood by me, obviously a little shy (and understandably so), and I asked her "is today your birthday?" She said yes, and I said it was my birthday, too. I asked her if she enjoyed the ice cream and she just nodded her head. She then thanked me for sharing the ice cream with them, and I said "you are very welcome". Definitely worth giving up our dessert for! Such a pleasure to see such nice, well behaved children for a change!

Rick P, I was going to try and blow out the sparkler thing in the ice cream but the waiter said &quot;you can try all you want, but they don't blow out&quot; so I saved my breath [img]<<GRAEMLIN_URL>>/grin.gif[/img]

Rick E., glad to hear you're almost here! It should definitely be warm enough for you!! Hope you enjoy the drive thru northern AZ and into the valley tomorrow.