Happy Birthday, Love.

My sweetie has a birthday today.  A big one... although he doesn't seem a day over 25 to me.  Things have been hopping around here and I'm going to be busy through the weekend.  But I thought I'd share a few photos of the day.
Egg number 2 arrived today.  V came in to tell me that Micah was sitting in the nest box and that I should come out to take a photo.

As you can see, by the time I came out with the camera, she had hopped out of the nest box and laid her egg underneath.  sigh... We've got decoy eggs in the boxes, hoping to encourage them to use the nests. Maybe next time.

V's brother K arrived this afternoon.  Yes, he is who K11 is named after.  So I was busy getting the guest bedroom ready and general cleaning today.  I also had to bake a cake.

A special cake:

The hourglass was J17's idea.  I tried to make it still really full!

Obviously, V was amused:

 Not too bad for an old man- he is 50 today.
V's brother shipped his guitars to our house so they can play together.

Tomorrow, E, who was the drummer for their band long ago, will arrive and then the fun will really begin.  They haven't played together for probably 25 years so things will be interesting.
Tomorrow for me, I am set to do the final shopping for the party (except for a few last minute produce items from the Saturday market) and I'll start cooking.  I'm so excited that I've finally got two eggplant in the garden that should be ready to make baba ganoush.  I'm also doing some hummus.  The rest of the party menu includes cheese tortellini (frozen) with pesto, caprese salad, some black bean/corn salsa with tomatoes, peppers and tomatillos from the garden, a veggie tray, a fruit tray and a variety of chips for dipping.  There will be local brats and hamburgers for dinner.  I'm also thinking of some local cheeses with crackers.  I'm trying as much as possible to do local, seasonal food.
I still need to do my alphabet catch up post sometime-- but not tonight.  I'll probably try to catch up the entire week on Sunday after the party.